Hello I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

Radio 4. My castaway this week is the American ambassador to Britain, Matthew Barson.

His posting, considered the Cherry on the diplomatic cake, was bestowed by President Obama Obama presumably in part as a thank you

for helping to transform campaign funding in the US and as a result Mr

Obama's own political fortunes.

Back in 2007, my castaway's inspired idea was to ask millions of people to give a few dollars to the Obama campaign

rather than the traditional method of a few giving millions.

It sparked a grassroots movement of support and swelled the coffers of the rank outsider, enabling

one of the greatest upsets in recent US political history,

although an even bigger presidential shakeup could be on the way.

In spite of gaining a reputation for throwing legendary parties at his lavish

Ambassadorial residence, my castaway believes diplomacy

is less about cocktails and canopies and more about countries asking, listening and responding

to each other on the big difficult questions.

Interesting then that he was brought up in that elevated strata New England society

where polite conversations studiously avoids the subjects of religion, money and politics.

He says, I have continually sought new ways to get more perspectives on recurring difficulties

and develop new solutions to old problems.

So Ambassador, welcome.

We tend to think of the upper echelons of diplomacy as taking place in a rather rarefied bubble and yet you are somebody who during

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