Sir Henry Wotton, a seventeenth-century English diplomat, defined an ambassador as “an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country”.[1] In explaining and defending his country’s policies and advancing its interests, an ambassador needs to be sociable and persuasive, as well as an effective leader of his staff, which will include an intelligence-gathering arm. He advocates for his country and advances arguments in its defence—in that respect his role is comparable to that of a barrister. He gathers evidence about what he supposes to be the future policies and actions of the host country, passing that…