Sir, It would be deeply disturbing, if in any year, neither the foreign secretary, defence secretary nor any other senior minister chose to attend the Munich Security Conference, Europe’s premier gathering of serving senior ministers responsible for global security and defence policy (report, Feb 17). That this occurred this year, a mere fortnight after we left the EU proclaiming a new belief in global Britain, is incomprehensible. If the president of France, president of Germany, US secretary of state, Russian foreign minister and a galaxy of other presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers were present, what excuse had British ministers for their absence?

It has been suggested that they were all required by the prime minister to attend a cabinet meeting after the