Christmas card diplomacy
We may soon know which world leaders Tony Blair's been sending Christmas cards to.
Last month the Information Commissioner that, while Downing Street can keep secret the identity of other recipients of Prime Ministerial Christmas cards, the balance of the public interest favours revealing which international leaders have been getting them.
But is this just trivial stuff? Some people might think so. However, clearly not Downing St itself. Its arguments for keeping the list secret refer to 'private disagreements or tensions with a particular country which meant that a Christmas card was not sent from the Prime Minister'. The PM's office doesn't want cases like this to escalate into being a public snub.
In other words Christmas cards are used as a diplomatic weapon, or as Downing St puts it, as a 'means of building and maintaining relationships'. Which suggests that disclosure of the list could tell us something about Britain's international relations that we didn't know before.
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