Thanks to the assorted forces of Sandline, Sierra Leone, President Kabbah, Foreign Office civil servants, various rebels and mercenaries, the Conservatives, Robin Cook, Tony Blair, and the British media -- Mr Lloyd is much more famous than he ever dreamed he might be. And all for the wrong reasons.

Mr Lloyd is the minister in charge of African matters. It is his responsibility to know whether British companies are illegally sending arms to foreign countries. It is also his responsibility to know whether any such companies are under official investigation for alleged breaches of United Nations embargos. Discharging those responsibilities depends on one crucial factor, namely the co-operation of officials. Without that, the minister is hopelessly adrift.

The Foreign Office is rightly proud of its reputation as a breeding-ground for high-quality officials. Its ministers are always kept informed of relevant details, they say. Keeping ministers informed, in turn, depends on one crucial factor, namely the willingness of ministers to read their papers. In full. Mr Cook, the Foreign Secretary, rather foolishly boasted in a recent television programme that it is quite possible to be a successful Foreign Secretary "without finishing the paperwork", or some such phrase. It plainly is not possible.

Mr Lloyd, his junior, has suffered from the other problem. He was not given sufficient information on which to base a judgement. He addressed MPs while ignorant of the fact that Customs and Excise were investigating the activities of Sandline. He says he was never told of the investigation. Sir John Kerr, the top civil servant at the Foreign Office, initially contradicted this and said that Mr Lloyd had, in fact, been briefed. Sir John, widely described as having a Rolls-Royce brain, then had to execute an ugly U-turn and admit that his memory had let him down.

This was the week's most farcical event in Whitehall terms. For Sir John to admit that Mr Lloyd had not, in fact, been fully briefed before his appearance in the Commons was stunning. It was a clear signal that officials had let ministers down, and a useful explanation as to why Mr Blair and Mr Cook have been much more cocky in recent days about the whole affair.

For the ultimate verdict on what went on, we will still have to wait for the Customs investigation to take its course, and the Foreign Office investigation after that. But it now seems clear that ministers themselves will not be fingered.

Right there in the firing line are the civil servants themselves. Ministers have a vested interest in making sure they are not brutally attacked, but the criticism (if there is any) will be very public indeed. Relations between civil servants at the Foreign Office and Mr Cook's team are, I am told, not particularly good. This episode will not have helped matters, and there's no sign of any immediate improvement.