The convulsions in the Arab world ought to teach him that there's more to his job than being a travelling salesman
The Foreign Office has always regarded itself as a cut above the rest. So probably would you if you were one of the inhabitants of King Charles Street. The walls are hung with oils of great figures from Britain's imperial past. There is so much gold leaf, glass and marble that even a Russian oligarch might think it a bit too blingy for his bathroom. The quarters reserved for the foreign secretary are an opulent throwback to the days when Britain presided over an empire on which the sun never set. William Hague's suite is much more spacious and splendid than the humdrum digs occupied by the mere prime minister across the road. Suave, urbane officials smooth along the gilded corridors. The diplomatic corps think of themselves as a superior breed to the more plebeian civil servants at health, transport and the other domestics of Whitehall.
What a grand department this is ? and what a pig's ear it has made of evacuating the Britons stranded in Libya as a deranged dictator uses mercenaries to slaughter his own people. We can all agree that it is not a simple task to extract endangered citizens from a country in revolt against an unhinged tyrant. The situation is highly chaotic and extremely violent. Reliable information is scarce. Logistics are a nightmare. I am sure there are officials, especially those on the ground in Tripoli, who have worked tirelessly and heroically to assist the Brits marooned in Libya. But even taking all that into consideration, the performance of Her Britannic Majesty's Foreign Office has looked pathetic. The French, the Germans, the Americans, the Turks, the Austrians, as well as much less well-resourced countries than Britain, were far quicker off the mark. It is a first-class fiasco when the prime minister has to say he is "incredibly sorry" for the performance of one of the great offices of state.
The very grandeur of the Foreign Office is part of the problem. There is a cultural explanation for this incompetence. The FCO has never regarded itself as a "delivery department". Its top-flight civil servants aspire to glamour postings in Washington or Paris. They make their reputations by their ability to defuse a diplomatic imbroglio or craft a communique. Their currency is words, not deeds. One senior Labour figure, with experience both at the Foreign Office and as a minister in other departments which have intimate dealings with the FCO, tells me that it was a constant frustration trying to cajole King Charles Street to do practical things in emergencies: "I had to push back against the officials all the time." A low status has always been accorded to consular services ? the arm of the Foreign Office that is supposed to be there to help Brits in distress abroad. That sort of work is regarded as rather below the salt and not for the top-drawer chaps.
The first error was to assume that commercial airlines would carry on flying in and out of Libya. It should have been foreseen that they would cancel their flights, not least because of the escalating insurance penalty for sending aeroplanes into a war zone. That left the government scrambling to hire a charter aircraft in the wake of other nations. When a plane was finally located, it then sat at Gatwick for nine hours awaiting repairs. The Foreign Office had put itself in the position of being the last person in the queue at a car rental agency on a busy weekend. No surprise that the only plane they could lay their hands on was incapable of flying to Luton, never mind Libya.
Why then did they not emulate the French and the Germans who deployed military transport? Liam Fox pointedly says the rescue effort has been "Foreign Office-led" and that his department was not asked to provide a plane. That cabinet comradeship by the defence secretary towards the foreign secretary is no doubt appreciated by William Hague. Everyone likes to be kicked by a colleague when they are down.
I have an informed hunch that money was the real reason the Foreign Office did not quickly ask for the use of a Hercules or two. When the Foreign Office uses military transports to move civilians, it is sent a bill by the MoD. His officials will have advised the foreign secretary that it would be cheaper to rent a commercial plane than request assistance from the RAF. Can it really be that inter-departmental accounting procedures are why Britain was slow to rescue its imperilled citizens? I fear it may well be so.
This weekend, Number 10's spokespeople are assuring us that the prime minister has taken a personal grip on the crisis. That may even be true. But the bloody convulsions in Libya also pose some big questions about David Cameron, none larger than this: does he have a foreign policy? It is not fair to say that he came to office without one, but it is reasonable to suggest that his foreign policy could be summarised on the back of an envelope. 1) Concentrate on domestic affairs. 2) Get out of Afghanistan as soon as we decently can and avoid any further foreign entanglements. 3) Hope Europe does not throw up anything which provokes my backwoodsmen. 4) Demonstrate the compassionate side of my Conservatism by maintaining the aid budget. 5) Sell more stuff abroad. 6) Concentrate on domestic affairs.
It was a list of bullet points rather than a fully developed strategic approach to the world. In the early period of his premiership, he gave the impression ? misleading perhaps, but definitely felt ? that he thought foreign policy began and ended with trade. British ambassadors were summoned to London to be given a new mission to promote exports. In last November's speech to the Lord Mayor's banquet, the prime minister declared that henceforth he would place "our commercial interests at the heart of our foreign policy". It would be "about selling Britain to the world". The diplomatic corps were sniffy at being designated as regional sales reps for UK plc. They can be too snooty about supporting Britain's economy, but diplomats nevertheless had a point when they complained that there was more to foreign policy than selling stuff. This was a very narrow and hardly noble approach ? and one found utterly wanting when confronted with the tumult that has erupted in North Africa and the Middle East.
It was in a mercantilist spirit that last week's prime ministerial tour of the Gulf States was originally conceived. His aeroplane was loaded with business chiefs, among them eight representatives of arms and aerospace firms. The stopover in Cairo was a last-minute addition, which allowed Number 10 to boast that he was the first foreign leader to visit Egypt since the fall of Hosni Mubarak. A better face was also put on the tour by his pro-democracy speech to the parliament in Kuwait. David Cameron is a reactive politician, but quite often his reaction can be a good one.
He said some important things during this tour. He called the uprisings against tyranny in the Arab world "hugely inspiring". One cheer for that. He denounced the "realist" school of foreign policy that holds that "Arabs or Muslims can't do democracy" and correctly contended that this attitude "borders on racism". Another cheer for that. He was also on the right side of the argument and of history when he contended: "Denying people their basic rights does not preserve stability, rather the reverse. Our interests lie in upholding our values." Three cheers for that. This is a huge improvement on the mealy-mouthed hesitations which characterised his government's initial response to the Arab spring. But it leaves unaddressed and unresolved the contradiction of calling yourself a friend of freedom while simultaneously leading a caravan of weapons salesmen to autocratic regimes. Number 10 has squirmed trying to explain that one.
The second part of the education of David Cameron has been about Britain's role in the world. He arrived at Number 10 as an instinctive sceptic about the European Union who also attached little apparent value to the United Nations or other multilateral organisations. He seemed to believe that Britain should concentrate on bilateral relationships. The value of international organisations ought now to be clearer to him. Confronted with a psychotic tyrant who is murdering his own people and may take our citizens hostage, Britain cannot do much on its own. Our leverage as a solo actor is somewhere between severely limited and nonexistent. Meaningful pressure on Colonel Gaddafi and the remnants of his regime is only likely to be achieved by concerted international action agreed at the UN and co-ordinated with the EU and the United States. The prime minister's advisers now boast of his level of engagement. They say he is a robust voice within the EU and that Britain has been "leading the charge" at the Security Council.
It would be going too far to say that David Cameron has now acquired a fully formed foreign policy, but this crisis does seem to have increased his appreciation that he needs one. Perhaps the Foreign Office can help out. The smoothies of King Charles Street are supposed to excel at that, at least. Well, here's hoping.
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