After three months of speculation, Keir Starmer has appointed a replacement for Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington. The winner is career diplomat Christian Turner, who has, for the last couple of years, been the political director at the Foreign Office.

Turner is considered a high-flyer and has been tipped for big roles like this for years, but it certainly won’t have done him any harm to have been one of the key link men with the incoming Labour administration a year ago. He and Oliver Robbins, the permanent secretary, have been presiding over a difficult reduction in headcount and awkward internal politics over both Gaza and Trump. He is just the sort of official who impresses the Prime Minister.

Despite reporting earlier this week that Nigel Casey, the ambassador to Russia, had overtaken Turner as the Foreign Office........

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