The proverbial plot has thickened and we have Tony Blair’s irascible crony, Bill Rammell, to thank for it. The junior minister decided that his meeting with the Chagossian community in Tombeau Bay would provide the perfect platform from which to throw a not too subtle Foreign Office spanner in the diplomatic works. By voicing his “concern and disappointment” at the government’s decision to cancel Her Majesty’s booking of the “Trochetia”, a Mauritian vessel that was to ferry a hundred islanders for a visit to their native archipelago next April, Mr Rammell was evidently indulging in the national pastime of Divide and Rule.

Bizarrely for a country that built a global empire on naval domination, Britain has found no replacement for the “Trochetia”. And, although he claimed that the visit was being organized on humanitarian grounds, it rapidly came to light that he was blithely attempting to slay not two, but three birds, with one polished stone. Not since JFK’s magic bullet would we have seen a projectile being used with such deftness.

It seems though that the crafty chaps at the FO might be getting a little rusty as they were outfoxed by one of their old minions. A result perhaps of too much hobnobbing with the Bush administration where Machiavelli’s political teachings have been replaced by Herbert’s blind deism. This “bis repetitas” of the White Man’s Burden is quaint, yet this time around the heathens are better informed. To Rammell’s dismay, I’m sure, his attempt to simultaneously ingratiate himself with the Chagossian community, play the latter off against the government of this country and discredit its claim of sovereignty over the Chagos islands was foiled by an alert Mauritian Foreign affairs ministry. This sharpness is a pleasant change from last year when Mauritius said it would leave the Commonwealth to take Britain to court. The threat was so precocious that Britain had ample time to change the rules.

Regrettably, the Chagossians continue to pay the price of diplomatic power games. For years, their attempts to undertake a pilgrimage to Diego Garcia have been stalled because their ancestors have the misfortune of sharing their place of eternal rest with the biggest US military base outside the US. Quite a predicament. Last year the British government obtained permission for them to visit the island. This new episode has postponed their pilgrimage indefinitely and elation has evaporated into disenchantment. “When two bulls fight, the grass gets trampled”, frowns the leader of the Chagos Refugee Group (GRC), Olivier Bancoult.

The islanders are not unfamiliar with such legerdemains. In November 2000, the London High Court deemed their deportation illegal thus granting them the right of return. Four years later, Her Majesty jotted her signature onto two pieces of paper called Orders in Council to nullify the High Court’s decision. Insult, one is tempted to say, has been added to injury.

There is an upside to Rammell’s turn as an “agent provocateur”. It will cement, more than ever, the Mauritian government’s resolve to stake its claim of sovereignty on the Chagos archipelago on the international stage. For its part, the GRC will seek justice in front of the European Court of Human Rights. They will have to tread carefully though, as my lecturer in politics once explained to support his controversial statement that he preferred Thatcher to Blair. “At least you knew where you stood with Thatcher. With Blair you really have no idea”, he told an uncharacteristically quiet class.