Anglo-american ties

SIR – Charles Moore (Comment, July 15) rightly says, as regards our former ambassador in Washington Sir Kim Darroch, that “there is logic in his departure”.

To raucous noise in the House of Commons, I argued on July 8 that Sir Kim’s long-held views on the EU disqualified him from his post. This has been made even clearer by the second batch of leaked emails. He should not have remained as our ambassador after the referendum and the Withdrawal Act 2018 for the reasons I gave.

John Bolton, Donald Trump’s national security adviser, is right, as is Mr Trump himself, in their support for Brexit, which includes Nato and our mutual defence and international security, as the current situation in the Middle East demonstrates.

All this is as plain as a pikestaff, and we certainly need an ambassador who fully supports this realism.

Sir William Cash MP (Con)

London SW1

SIR – If a government secret is leaked, as Sir Kim’s emails were, then the fault lies entirely with a government official. I was taught that highly classified information should never be sent by email or put on any computer network in unencrypted format.

Recent events have shown that this is an essential rule for keeping secrets. Dr Laurence Oldfield

Malvern, Worcestershire

SIR – Before the era of the internet and email, diplomatic telegrams were received over secure communications, given limited distribution and treated with the utmost confidentiality.

Modern communications encourage slipshod methods of information management, and there is every probability that the perpetrator of the leak will not be identified. Commodore Barry Goldman (retd) Storrington, West Sussex