'We want you to get up the arse of the White House and stay there' were the instructions from the Blair regime to its US Ambassador.

Frei on the other hand did this on the media front entirely voluntarily... and indeed showed every sign of revelling in his abjectness.
He illustrates that fatal part of the psyche of the English ruling elite which is utterly self-abasing in the face of perceived power: I always assumed it has something to do with public school boy fagging (though the child of German/Jewish immigrants he's a Westminster school old "boy" ) and a consequent S&M mentality.