What prospects for British diplomacy if everybody behaves like a loose cannon, whatever the moral justification?Murray realises that, by protesting about the uselessness of intelligence obtained under torture, he had inadvertently uncovered the basis of the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” programme. On the other hand, when they tortured him to death they forced his own testicles down his throat.”This is indeed what happened to Murray, metaphorically speaking, as his diplomatic career was brought to an end. His witty and engaging narrative makes him look like the Candide of the cynical diplomatic world. In his fight against the system, the system won, despite his principled stand against New Labour’s craven alignment with the Bush administration. To his credit, his decision to confront the Uzbek authorities gained him their respect and made him a hero to the NGOs. “I was trying to change a massively entrenched dictatorship by hurling myself against it What was the point?” Simply “that it had to be done Think William Wallace. They then drive to the nearest fleshpot – “in any Western country he would have been 10 times over the drink-driving limit” – where they continue the evening with beer and yet more vodka until 4am.Murray describes well the horrors of the US-backed Karimov regime – the death by boiling, police rapes and forced labour in the cotton fields.

On a typical evening’s drinking with an Uzbek official, the pair down considerable quantities of Georgian red wine before they each consume the best part of a bottle of vodka with mutual toasts. It is more Carry on up the Khyber than Murder in Samarkand.
A Foreign Office colleague is described as “the only man in the FCO who can drink me under the table”: a boast illustrated during Murray’s posting to Uzbekistan. But the central theme risks being obscured by the revelations about his personal life. It is a shame, because Murray has a compelling tale about torture, skulduggery and bravery in the wilds of Uzbekistan. But his accusations that the Government was turning a blind eye to the use of torture brought him into conflict with support for the “war on terror”, and he was forced to resign after a smear campaign encompassing both his private and professional life that destroyed his health and his marriage In this book, Murray tells his side of the story. If you have already formed an opinion about the poor judgement of the kilt-wearing, self-described “boozed-up, randy Scot”, who left his long-suffering wife for an Uzbek dancer, the book will not change your mind. Former UK ambassador Craig Murray, when he was Our Man in Tashkent, launched a one-man campaign to expose human-rights abuses in Uzbekistan.

A novel that unpacks complex emotional baggage with deceptive sleight of hand EH. The Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan has one of the world’s most vicious regimes. President Islam Karimov, a Soviet-era survivor, would be right at the top of any league table of despots, along with Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Kim Jong-Il of North Korea. Its likeable narrator, Najwa, moves from a privileged youth in Khartoum – partying to Michael Jackson mixes – to life as a maid in Regent’s Park.