Strange Services
I’d like to be the former Ambassador to Uzbekistan. A big country, and an important one, but not an obvious one.
Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi are to be congratulated for unconventional diplomacy, which succeeded in persuading Sudan’s obnoxious government to release Gillian Gibbons.
But what about conventional diplomacy - our ambassador and his embassy, maintained in Khartoum with a British staff much larger than that available to General Gordon? Why could they and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office not have obtained her release?
Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi are to be congratulated for unconventional diplomacy, which succeeded in persuading Sudan’s obnoxious government to release Gillian Gibbons.
But what about conventional diplomacy - our ambassador and his embassy, maintained in Khartoum with a British staff much larger than that available to General Gordon? Why could they and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office not have obtained her release?
It would seem that wherever there is a crisis affecting Britons abroad - including the tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the tragic case of Ken Bigley - the FCO’s performance comes in for criticism. So much so that the question is now being raised - by international expert Lord Wallace of Saltaire, the Lib Dems’ foreign affairs spokesman in the Lords, among others - whether Britons abroad can any longer expect the protection of their embassy.
With 15 million Britons living overseas and huge numbers travelling to every obscure corner of the globe, is it time for the FCO to stop pretending to offer consular protection?
There is no doubt that the picture is not good. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, British citizens were evacuated to the horror and squalor of the Superdome stadium, where thousands of people were crowded among what the BBC described as ‘knee-high piles of faeces’.
Once the roads into New Orleans became passable, a British Consulate convoy set out to pick them up. Reaching a checkpoint, they were told they were not allowed to enter without a permit from the Governor of Louisiana. Our intrepid diplomats turned back.
Ten minutes later the Australian consul arrived. Told he had to turn back, he replied: ‘Are you going to shoot me?’ and drove through the roadblock, the Southern Cross flying proudly from his bonnet.
The Australians got out their own people and some of ours. And when the British finally arrived at the stadium two days later, having jumped through the paper hoops like good little bureaucrats, they found they had almost no one left to rescue, most of the Britons having been helped out by journalists.
I’m sure they found sufficient job satisfaction in the paperwork.
Unsurprisingly, Aussie Brett McS sent this to me, with a smug “Don’t show this to Red!” though of course he knew I would.
It’s a good question, of course. I think most diplomatic missions are useless, but it’s especially funny considering the British feeling of superiority about their foreign service, and it turns out not even their own British expats like them.
December 11th, 2007 at 3:13 am
It’s the old “Yes Minister” joke - the Agriculture ministry looks after the farmers, the industry ministry looks after industry and the Foreign Office looks after foreigners.
The FCO’s gona all diverse, so you don’t get the lean-jawed derring-do diplomat quite as often. Just as likely to get a sociology graduate from Essex nowadays, and female to boot.
The only bloke I know who entered the diplomatic service ended up as an ambassador to a country people have heard of. He had the most undiplomatic manner you can imagine. Think of Clarkson, only angry. Though it doesn’t seem to have done him any harm, for a Yorkshireman.