Meyer was ambassador during one of the most tumultuous periods in UK-US relations. After leaving the diplomatic service he assumed the role of chairman of the Press Complaints Committee. He joined the Foreign Office in 1966 and had postings in Moscow, Madrid and Brussels. After a stint as press secretary to Major, the then prime minister, between 1993 and 1996, Meyer was briefly appointed ambassador to Germany before being sent to Washington by Tony Blair in 1997. His unusually long tenure at the heart of the special relationship covered the end of the Clinton administration and the attacks on the World Trade Center in September 2001. He was Blair’s interlocutor with the George W. Bush administration during the invasion of Afghanistan and later in the war Iraq. He claimed he was instructed by Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, to “get up in the White House and stay there”. Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, became his tennis partner, reflecting his charm and ability to move across the political spectrum. Although he was given the ambassadorship by Blair, he told the inquiry into the UK’s invasion of Iraq led by Sir John Chilcot that he believed the prime minister’s relationship with Bush had become so close that he effectively gave the president a blank check . proceed to the invasion. He told the inquest that there was “a large chunk of time” when Bush and Blair were alone at the Crawford summit in Texas in April 2002. He said there were hints of Blair’s thinking in a speech he gave to the US at the time, talking about regime change. In his autobiography, DC Confidential, he became more critical of Blair’s way of working and of some of Blair’s cabinet ministers, including the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw. He described Straw as a B-list politician who needs to be liked more than admired. His critics in the Blair government later said he had wavered because he had been shut out of crucial meetings. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every day at 7am. BST Famous for his red socks, Meyer as press secretary tried to project the Tycoon’s administration at a time when the Conservative government was falling in part because of vulgarity. He was married to Catherine Meyer, the founder of the charity Parents and Abducted Children Together. Her German ex-husband had refused to let her children return from holiday, leading to a lengthy legal battle. In 2020, she was appointed as the prime minister’s commercial envoy to Ukraine.
