Most people accentuate the positive and downplay the negative on their curricula vitae or résumés. Clever employers are aware of that and take it into account. Really clever employers add points for initiative when it is done well.

However, it is clearly overkill when a job applicant claims to have flown helicopters with Prince Andrew, and played rugby for Wales, and earned a PhD, and served with the Royal Marines, and raced a bobsled at the Winter Olympics, and spied for two major British intelligence agencies, and played guitar on the folk circuit, and helped design the Polaris missile system ...and much else besides.

Apart from anything else, when could he have had the time? Yet despite telling a large number of huge and obviously contradictory lies, Stephen Wilce held down a very important job for five years

...with the New Zealand government!

...after passing their highest level of security “vetting”!!

...as their Director of Defence Technology!!!

Sorry about the multiple exclamation marks, but it really does beggar belief. A modern government can have no excuse. Of course, those of us with small businesses do not usually have access to the security files and investigative apparatus that is available to the state. Nevertheless the rule for all of us should be that whatever can be checked about a job applicant should be checked.

The most important facts of an employee’s working life are usually the hardest to research. However, it is still worthwhile to follow up on any minor details that are easy to verify – on the sound principle that someone who lies about little things will also lie about big things.

In Wilce’s case, it is astonishing that no one in rugby-mad New Zealand thought to check the on-line list of everyone who has ever won a Welsh cap. That would have been enough to raise questions.

In previous posts we have condemned over-regulation of employees surfing the internet or gossiping in working hours. This vindicates our position. A bit of on-line surfing by a nosy co-worker would soon discover what high level security “vetting” by a New Zealand’s Secret Intelligence Service did not.

One of the more amusing snippets to be found on WikiLeaks is a memo from a rather humourless American career diplomat describing a jolly-sounding lunch with Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, who was in Kyrgyzstan to promote British business interests.

The media tell us that the Prince has been “criticised” – for his remarks

...not by the business community! On the contrary, it is a pleasant change to see our business interests being represented by someone who sympathises with us and understands some of our problems. The American diplomat also refers to the Prince’s “unmitigated patriotic fervour” – which is just what any country would like to see in someone selling it abroad, and which one rarely sees in career diplomats. The Prince’s main points are summarised below in italics, followed by our comments.

1   “Doing business in Kyrgyzstan involves dealing with corruption.” Did anyone think any differently?

2   “...Just like France.” A bit unfair ... perhaps. France may not be quite that bad – but French officials certainly know how to make your life Hell if you do not play ball with them.

3   “Outsiders cannot change the culture of a country any more than they can cure someone of anorexia.” If only Western governments grasped this simple truth, a lot of unnecessary suffering could be avoided.

4   “Russia is playing the Great Game in Central Asia again and this time Western governments should win.” A brilliant analysis, putting current problems in their proper strategic and historical context, which has so far escaped the Western governments themselves.

5   “The media are not helpful when business deals are being negotiated.” You only have to look at England’s 2018 World Cup bid for proof.

6   “The British anti-corruption investigation of the Al-Yamama deal with Saudi Arabia was idiotic.” Self-evidently true.

7   “British and American governments plan for 10 years where people in Central Asia think in terms of centuries.” Another brilliantly perceptive observation.

8   “The British are better than the Americans at geography.” A generalisation to which there are numerous exceptions on both sides. However, British businessmen are generally pro-American and go to great lengths to find out about America, and are often shocked to find how little many American decision-makers know about the rest of the world. Our humourless American career diplomat seems to be a case in point.