Here is what appears to be the first-ever speech by a UK Foreign Secretary (maybe the first-ever speech by any Foreign Minister) on consular work. And v effective it is too.

I have written here about some aspects of consular work under Labour, not least the appalling Three Ps which Ambassadors were ordered to emote at every opportunity:

As part of a trite urge to make the FCO look ‘relevant’, FCO Ministers issued new instructions to the global network of Ambassadors.

If more than a handful of British citizens look to have been involved in a ‘serious incident’ (Note: defined at a very low level, eg a motorway car pile-up with say five deaths) the Ambassador personally is expected to drop everything (CAP reform, Climate Change, Terrorism) and go straight to the scene.

Once there he/she is expressly instructed to deploy the 3 Ps:

What the public expects to hear from you/your spokesman/Minister/official after a major incident :

Pity: sympathy for the victims and their families

Praise: praise for/thanks to the emergency services etc

Pledge: a promise/pledge to get to the bottom of what has happened – and learn any lessons

Yuck.

Is not there something wrong here? Namely a complete loss of proportion?

Hundreds of thousands of British people travel in different parts of the world every day. Just by the forces of Bad Luck a tiny number will hit trouble, of whom a small proportion alas will get killed or injured.

Of those, a proportion will have suffered because they themselves messed up in one way or the other (not least ignoring FCO warnings).

Of these, some of them or their relatives will rush to whinge to the media about the FCO support they received, merely to assuage their own incompetence or guilt.

That’s how it is.

High-level official emoting-by-numbers when there really has not been a major disaster – involving (say) at a minimum several scores of British deaths in one go – is nothing other than a dangerous dumbing down of the way we all look at Life and its Priorities.

Nonetheless, the effort and sheer ingenuity devoted to consular work by the FCO are in fact world class. Imaginative use of IT is combined with smart organisation at HQ and at posts to deliver a service going far beyond what most other countries aim for, let alone deliver. Labour did a lot to boost the wholeoperation following mixed experiences in dealing with the ghastly Bali Bombing.

As always countries share consular responsibilities on an ad hoc basis. Here the Foreign Secretary tells the European Union not to mission creep its way into this policy/operational area, although one might ask quite why this stern warning makes sense: if we coordinate so many other areas of policy work with EU partners, why not this one?

For us consular services will always remain a national responsibility. Within the European Union, there is no role for EU institutions in defining the consular assistance that Member States should provide to their citizens, or in providing frontline consular assistance. These are matters for which national governments are accountable to their Parliaments and we will oppose EU competence creep in this area.

William Hague gives examples of the scope of the problems faced  by the FCO in providing decent consular coverage across the planet for Brits who get into their myriad scrapes or disasters. More here.

Plus he adds some knockabout examples of the exotic expectations which some people have about what service HMG might reasonably offer. My own best example as Resident Clerk was someone calling the FCO from Texas in the middle of the night UK-time to ask about the rules for importing pets into the UK.

However, he might have been firmer on the subject of people who rush to the media to make high-profile complaints which the media lovingly endorse. Yes. some complaints will be justified, although they need to be set against the many letters of praise and gratitude. But others will be ridiculous and annoying, frothing up private unreasonableness to make a stupid selfish noise.

It also needs to be remembered that sometimes consular officials go far beyond any normal call of duty. Back in Belgrade in the early 1980s an Embassy officer had to deal with a terrible road accident involving a British family. Somehow the victim survived in a Yugoslav hospital, but the Embassy colleague kindly housed the distressed spouse for a couple of weeks as treatment continued until the injured person could be shipped back to UK.

I also note in this speech a new and very welcome adjective, all the more welcome for being so wildly unexpected – courageous:

We need courageous people, who will travel to disaster areas, comfort the victims of violent crime and comb hospitals and morgues when our nationals are injured or killed overseas.

Blimey. Whatever next?

Maybe we can extend this novel idea to those public servants who are paid to help British citizens here in the UK, to the point where they become brave enough to wade into a shallow boating pool to rescue someone rather than sit poring over the Health and Safety manual.