Fco

‘We don’t do God,’ was Alastair Campbell’s put-down when his charge, Tony Blair, was tempted to raise the issue of his faith. Unfortunately, it seems to have become the motto of David Cameron’s government. It is a month now since 276 girls were kidnapped from a school near the town of Chibok in northern Nigeria, and still the Foreign Office’s statements on the crisis read like a deliberate exercise in missing the point. ‘Continuing murders and abductions of schoolchildren, particularly girls in Nigeria by Boko Haram, are a stark reminder of the threat faced by women and girls in conflict-prone areas,’ Mark Simmonds, minister for Africa, said this week. ‘Young

Colin Freeman, the Telegraph’s fine chief foreign correspondent, made a remarkable claim the other day that merits wider attention. What, he asked, was Britain’s view on the crisis in Ukraine? The answer was revealing for many reasons, not the least of which being the extent to which eurosceptic myopia has, according to Freeman, caused Britain to misjudge the dramatic events unfolding in Kiev and elsewhere. According to Freeman: The depth of Euro-scepticism in Britain meant it cared little either way when Ukraine was gearing up last year to sign an EU trade agreement that would have brought it out of the Russian orbit. In Downing Street, the view was that Europe’s

Rather to my embarrassment, I find that I missed last night’s episode of the BBC2 three-part series on The Ottomans, Europe’s Muslim Conquerors, in which I briefly featured. So Heaven knows what I actually said in it; it’s been a while since filming. But I’m rather hoping that the point I wanted to get across did, viz, that it’s nuts, barking mad, insane, away with the fairies, for Britain to be agitating for Turkey to be part of the EU. On David Cameron’s last visit to Turkey in 2010, he expressed anger at the delay in Turkey’s admission to the Union and blamed opponents for playing on fears of Islam

Today’s Foreign Office Questions was a far classier affair than yesterday’s rather snippy session with Philip Hammond on Defence. William Hague chose not to tell Labour that they had no authority when talking about Syria, instead choosing to focus on the humanitarian situation that Britain can still do something about. His first answer was as follows: ‘The United Nations has announced that there are now 2 million Syrian refugees in the region. The United Kingdom is already the second largest donor, supporting more than 900,000 Syrians, and we will do more. The president of the Syrian National Coalition will visit London on Thursday, when we will discuss further support to

It’s always wise when looking at the European Union to imagine that you’re an alien (it’s the sort of thing MEPs probably do on away days, anyway) coming to the administration for the first time. If a friendly alien had pitched up on earth this afternoon and read the Foreign Office’s first tranche of Balance of Competences Review reports (clearly the sort of thing any sensible alien would do, after a period of revelling in the labyrinthine beauty and inefficiency of the gov.uk website), what would they think? The first of reports – there are three more to come – were published this afternoon, delayed, it was claimed, to stop

The supporters of that exhibitionist monkey Julian Assange are becoming ever more bizarre. George Galloway MP, for example, has been sounding like a High Court judge in 1973: those women were not ‘raped’, he says of the accusations against Assange; calling that sort of thing rape diminishes the concept of rape — it was just “bad sexual etiquette”. So, there are — as Ken Clarke once pointed out before he was eviscerated by the liberal hate mob – different gradations of rape and some things which are called rape are not rape at all. As it happens, I think Galloway has a point. But as far as George is concerned

Julian Assange appeared in public for the first time in two months this afternoon to make a statement about his continuing resistance to attempts to extradite him. The Wikileaks founder made a number of claims and arguments which it’s useful to have a look at in further detail: 1. ‘If the UK did not throw away the Vienna conventions the other night, it was because the world was watching’. Foreign Secretary William Hague has insisted that there are no plans to ‘storm’ the Ecuadorian embassy to arrest Assange. Either officers will attempt to arrest him when he leaves the building for Ecuador (although there is an interesting theory he may

There is a quiet revolution taking place at the Foreign Office under William Hague’s stewardship. This morning’s headlines focus on the announcement of ‘greatly increased’ support for Syrian rebels including £5 million ‘of non-lethal practical assistance’ for the Free Syrian Army. In straightforward terms this means communications equipment, medical supplies, and body armour. Critics have understandable concerns. Who is the Free Syrian Army? What do they want? Will sectarian bloodshed follow the fall of Assad? Lessons from the Afghan-Soviet war counsel against the promiscuous embrace of rebels whose immediate aims appear to chime with ours. This is the challenge facing Whitehall mandarins. A humanitarian crisis looms in Syria where more

To mark the 30th anniversary of the start of the Falklands War, here’s Ferdinand Mount’s column from the time: The last armada, Ferdinand Mount, 10 April 1982 A debacle speaks for itself. All things that inescapably follow — the humiliation, the indignation, the ministers hurrying in and out of Cabinet, the spectacular sitting of Parliament on a Saturday, the calls for the resignation of Mr John Nott, Lord Carrington and anyone else standing in the line of fire — are not only themselves part and parcel of the debacle; they help to explain why it happened. The Falkland Islanders are the last victims of our refusal to be honest with

The Foreign Office has kindly responded to my Telegraph piece from last week, which suggested that they could do more to confront the religious cleansing sweeping the Middle East. In an extended version of a letter he has sent to the paper, the Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt says that his department is doing plenty: ‘Concrete examples include: Iraq, where the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have raised religious freedoms and where the FCO is funding a further meeting of the High Council of Religious Leaders; Algeria where I recently met a delegation of Christian leaders to discuss the challenges they are facing; Egypt where the Deputy Prime Minister has

The Palestinians are seeking United Nations recognition as a state and a vote is apparently imminent. The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland has a useful account of the diplomatic arithmetic and explains how the possible vote could be decided by European countries and by Britain in particular. ‘Barack Obama has already said the US will vote against any Palestinian move towards statehood at the UN general assembly now gathering in New York. Large swaths of Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East plan to vote for it. Which leaves Europe as the diplomatic battleground. If the leading European powers side with the US, the Palestinian initiative will be seen as a

William Hague is an unlikely sort of technophile. Truth be told, for all his strengths he simply does not look like a signed-up member of the Twitterati. His history-dripping, gold-covered office in King Charles Street is about as far away from the internet-enabled Google office as you can get. But the Foreign Secretary has just opened a Facebook profile – and garnered a thousand friends or so in a few days. Ironically, none of his staff can see his family snapshots, his “likes” or who he chooses to poke – as access to Facebook is limited on the Foreign Office IT network. How this foray onto Facebook will end up

The BBC World Service has been reprieved. An additional £2.2m will be spent to preserve the Arabic service, in line with some of the wishes of Foreign Affairs Select Committee Chairman Richard Ottaway and Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC and occasional consigliere to David Cameron. I don’t share the Foreign Office’s sometime view that this is a ‘massive u-turn’, but it is a significant development. Opposition to cuts to the World Service budget came from across the House; but it originated from Tory backbenchers, who were very confident that they would secure a concession. The subsequent climb down suggests that Downing Street is prepared to consult with and

Lord Malloch Brown has inverted Voltaire’s maxim on the execution of Admiral Byng: treat Moussa Koussa well to encourage the others. Most of this morning’s papers expect further defections from the Gaddafi regime ‘within days’. These defections are expected to come from Gaddafi’s civil administration; the Colonel’s military and security arms remain fiercely loyal. The Foreign Office refuses to give a ‘running commentary’ on events, but the confidence of its officials is ill-disguised. It is increasingly apparent that Tripoli is spiralling into desperation and that the fetid regime is fracturing. The Guardian reports that an aide of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Mohammad Ismail, has been in London. Details are scarce but