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Matthew Parris marks the passing of the valedictory despatch, the traditional final telegram home in which British ambassadors could let their hair down and settle a few scores. The series features newly declassified Foreign Office files alongside interviews with the diplomats who wrote them. Despatches which changed the course of history, including Nicholas Henderson's 1979 valedictory lament to a Britain 'poor and unproud', in economic decline and losing ground to her European rivals.