Why is telling the truth always undiplomatic?
An English ambassador wrote 400 years ago “A diplomat is an honest man sent by his country to lie abroad”. He got into trouble with king James I about that. But I have also realised that people don’t like being told the hard truth or the real truth. They do anything to avoid hearing the truth. The result is, particularly when the truth is softened diplomatically, that nothing changes, nothing gets done, everything continues as it did before. What is the value of diplomacy? I prefer to speak the truth and suffer the consequences. This is not right but it’s the way the world works.