I

t’s vital to keep children abreast of current affairs. Which was why I was using the recent Wikileaks affair as a bedtime story. “And then the whistle-blower opened the big box of secrets. It was full of diplomatic letters!”

A little hand went up: “What does diplomatic mean, Daddy?” I explained: “Well, if you are a diplomatic person, it means you’re a person who is careful to only say nice things.”

But then I thought about the Wikileaks exposes and decided that the main problem was that diplomatic people weren’t at all diplomatic.

“One of the secrets was that a leader named Lee Kuan Yew called another leader, Kim Jong-il, a ‘flabby old chap’ with ‘psychopathic’ tendencies,” I said.

My daughter asked what “psychopathic” meant. “It’s a person who commits horrible, evil crimes,” I explained. She pondered for a moment before asking: “Like drawing on walls and forgetting to say please?” I nodded. “Right. And worse stuff.” She looked shocked, unable to comprehend anything worse.

Switching off the light and leaving the room. I pondered the whole Wikileaks drama. You can see why diplomats don’t like it. They’ve been exposed as a massively expensive network of snarky gossipers. Taxpayers are paying a fortune for insulting comments they can get free at the bar. I get called a “flabby old chap with psychopathic tendencies” several times a day, and that’s before I leave home in the morning.

Now if you Wikileaks people want to be really useful, I’d be delighted if you could kindly track down the email files of the so-called “intelligence” agents who got everything wrong during the George W. Bush era that I would love to see. Just imagine: The Top 14 Leaked Reports from US Intelligence Circa 2003:

1. Russia: “This place is really big. Maybe even bigger than Texas.”

2. China: “The Chinese food in this country is not bad, but not as good as the real thing.”

3. Indonesia: “These people are so secretive, we can’t even get them to give us their full names.”

4. Philippines: “This place is full of Mexicans, with names like Garcia and de la Cruz.”

5. Malaysia: “Half of this country is in Thailand, while the other half is in Indonesia. No one is able to adequately explain why this is so.”

6. Brunei: “Small country full of nuns. Every female wears a wimple.”

7. India: “Lots of brown people milling around, some with turbans. Like a huge convention of New York taxi drivers, except people here speak better English.”

8. Taiwan: “These people don’t even know the name of their own country, constantly confusing it with the one next door.”

9. North Korea: “Place run by trigger-happy jingoists who like starting wars. Recommendation: Sign them up as Republicans Abroad.”

10. Pakistan: “The inhabitants are Indian, but it’s not polite to say so. Same with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.”

11. Britain: “Country where they have copied many place names from US; for example, they have their own London, Cambridge, etc.”

12. Australia: “Like Britain, but with giant mutant mice who hop around on their back legs.”

13. Iraq: “Country sometimes spelled ‘Iran’.”

14. Iran: “See above.”

The writer is a columnist and journalist.