In the world of politics making friends must be tough, bearing in mind that so much of what is said and done happens under the spotlight of the press. However even so it is often surprising when such people take to the pages of such newspapers to try to hold dialogue with one another as though there are no ways of doing so discretely and with subtlety. In trying to find an image to go with this blog I scoured my usual source and could not find a single photo of Boris and Bill (Boris Johnson and William Hague) together. The likelihood is that both men enjoy other peoples company and find it easiest to use the pages of the Daily Telegraph to communicate with one another and with other colleagues. Exactly 14 months ago as Theresa May took over the reigns of her new role as Prime Minister and Boris Johnson took on the task of Foreign Secretary, his predecessor but one took to the pages of the Telegraph to advise him how to do the job. Bill or as he prefers to be called William gave Boris 10 points to follow. In point 6 he writes “quietly crossing your fingers that Donald Trump is not in the White House six months from now.” I guess even Boris could not take the blame for that. The last three points are particularly interesting if one was wanting to check that Boris read Bills piece

8. Use the great assets and connections of the UK to launch new initiatives to improve the condition of humanity.

9. Be the one who makes it possible for a team of rivals to function, in the interests of the country.

10. Build the Foreign Office into one of the great institutions of foreign policy thinking in the world.

The challenge for Boris and Bill has re-emerged with their latest correspondence, again in the pages of the Telegraph. I have already commented on the dishonesty in the piece by Boris on Saturday, but now we have Bills comments from the same paper on Monday:

It is putting it a bit too politely to say, in the wake of Boris Johnson’s article in this newspaper on Saturday, that the approach of senior ministers to the Brexit negotiations appears to lack co-ordination (perhaps Bill was recalling his point 8 from last July). More bluntly, it is now 15 months since the referendum, and high time that all members of the Government were able to express themselves on this subject in the same way as each other, putting forward the same points, as part of an agreed plan. Hopefully, that happy circumstance will follow the speech the Prime Minister is due to give on the subject in Florence on Friday. If not, there will be no point Conservatives discussing who is going to be the Foreign Secretary, Chancellor or Prime Minister in the coming years, because Jeremy Corbyn will be Prime Minister, sitting in Number 10 with John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, completely ruining this country.

It seems to me that if we are expected to believe that Bill and Boris along with Liam and David and Theresa are to be seen as Statesmen and women, that they will focus on their work and keep their correspondence out of the papers. However perhaps more importantly they will remember that the way this country is run is not in a manner that is good for the Tory Party and bad for the Labour Party, but rather that the strengths of every man and women in Parliament is needed if we are to emerge from the chaos of Brexit in a better condition than the Emperor in the story told by Hans Christian Anderson. As Bill wrote in his piece last July, he wanted Boris to  3. Reject the idea that Britain’s influence in the world will shrink as emerging powers get stronger. It appears that over the last year instead of our influence shrinking, that it has shriveled and we have become a laughing stock thanks to the antics of the Government. We need to change this urgently if we are to emerge in public with the slightest hint of stateman-like clothing intact.