Field Marshal Lord Guthrie is off to Vietnam today for Christmas with his wife and two sons and their partners. He is very pleased that he’s not going to North Korea, which he visited with a parliamentary delegation a few years ago.
“I can’t say I’m particularly surprised by what’s going on in North Korea,” says Guthrie, Tony Blair’s favourite general, following the execution of Kim Jong-un’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek. “It’s the strangest place I’ve ever been. I don’t think anyone can claim to know what will happen next.
“One shouldn’t underestimate the support Kim has. The army has huge privileges and the country is run by a small group of people. They have been under the cosh so long that they have no idea what life is like in the rest of the world.
“Vietnam, on the other hand, sounds such fun, so different from when it was torn by war.”
