Why are Foreign Office mandarins so ashamed of their own country?

The Foreign Office has been criticised as ‘elitist and rooted in the past’ in a scathing report by some of the UK’s most senior former senior diplomats and officials. The report, entitled ‘The World in 2040: Renewing the UK’s approach to International Affairs’, has been penned by the former cabinet secretary Lord Sedwill; a former director general at the Foreign Office, Moazzam Malik; and the former Number 10 foreign policy adviser Tom Fletcher, among others. It certainly doesn’t pull any punches.

The department is ‘struggling to deliver a clear mandate, prioritisation and resource allocation.’ This is mandarin-speak for saying the Foreign Office is simply not fit for purpose. The authors criticise the merger of the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development to create the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) as largely a failure. The criticisms don’t end there: ‘The Foreign Office all too often operates like a giant private office for the foreign secretary of the day, responding to the minister’s immediate concerns and ever-changing in-tray.’ Hallelujah to that: this tendency has, if anything, become even more obvious following David Cameron’s return to office as Foreign Secretary.

These criticisms are all well and good but what of the remedies on offer from this distinguished group of experts? Unfortunately, there is very little of substance, beyond the usual jamboree of well-meaning piffle about Britain’s place in the world, and the need for ‘humility’ in a changing world. The authors suggest the Foreign Office should be abolished and replaced by a new Department for International Affairs with ‘fewer colonial era pictures on the wall’. Really? A name-change and a spot of interior decoration? That doesn’t really cut it as a way forward.

The report recommends that this new department, under its new name, should be given a broader remit that promotes Britain’s prosperity and security by better coordinating strategy on trade and aid, development and climate change – as well as foreign policy. The authors say this would make the department better able to deliver on Britain’s long-term international objectives. It is a far from convincing argument to suggest that a failing department is given even more responsibilities in other key policy areas such as trade. Why would this lead to better outcomes? Equally absurd is the call for a new commitment by the government to spend 1 per cent of national income on the department’s international priorities, to help match the 2 per cent of national wealth currently committed to defence. It is hard to see this proposal flying at a time of squeezed national budgets. There is a much stronger case to be made for any available extra funds to be spent on defence.

The report predictably – and disappointingly – calls for the UK to exercise greater realism as the middle-rank nation it now is. According to the report, ‘The UK has often sought to project an image of “greatness” to the world that today seems anachronistic.’

This is wretched stuff. Why is Britain’s mandarin class so ashamed of their own country? There is no embarrassment – nor should there be – in Britain exercising leadership on the world stage. This is no time for humility or taking a back seat.

One final question must be posed to those behind this report and its trenchant criticisms of the Foreign Office. Lord Sedwill is a former cabinet secretary, the most senior civil servant in Whitehall. Would it not have been better to have voiced such criticisms when he was in office and in a position to do something about the issues involved? Why do we have to be told about the problems and potential solutions long after he and the other experts involved have departed the scene? The Foreign Office’s failings are obvious enough but so too are those of this country’s mandarin class who only seem to find their voice once they’ve left the corridors of power.