Today I spotted this April piece about the decline and fall of the BBC, from More Intelligent Life:

Last Sunday wasn’t the most eventful one in world history. But it wasn’t short of news either. In the United States, the Democratic infighting takes a dramatic new twist with Senator Obama’s guns-and-religion gaffe. In Britain, there was open talk of Labour disenchantment with Gordon Brown, the party’s prime minister. In Italy, a general election looked likely to bring Europe’s most colourful politician to power. In Africa, regional leaders chose to sit on their hands as Robert Mugabe’s thugs clubbed their way to keeping him in power, yet again. Food riots in Haiti symbolised the soaring price of the world’s basic grains. In Washington, top officials of the seven leading economies gave grim warnings about the credit crunch.

So what does the British Broadcasting Corporation pick on to lead its evening television news? Five young British women have been killed in a bus crash in Ecuador.

Minute after minute — four or five, I’d guess, in a 20-minute bulletin — the report drags on, complete with (justifiably) sorrowing parents, the usual tributes (equally justified, let us trust) and the plastered-on solemnity of journalistic grief in which the BBC is now so expert …

…  Still, the BBC is a national institution, supported by public funds. It has a duty to deliver public-service information. That means hard news. Instead, the Beeb’s editors specialise increasingly in mawkish sentimentality with its bunches of plastic-wrapped flowers, its standard clichés of public sorrow and de mortuis nil nisi bunkum …

The bad news is that the FCO also has moved strongly into this mawkish territory in recent years.

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.

Memo to next Foreign Secretary, and indeed this one:

The media love to pounce on allegations of FCO staff being unkind or inefficient when they find British citizens overseas who have hit trouble. For every hundred people who write in to you with profuse letters of thanks, there are a number who complain – sometimes fairly, sometimes not – to the media.

It makes no sense to pander to the ensuing synthetic media tantrum.

Next time the media attack FCO consular staff doing their best, go on the offensive. Say bluntly that it is not realistic to expect the government to respond in a perfect way to suit every traveller who has a problem overseas, any more than it can be expected to sort out every problem at home.

And add that just as there are a proportion of people who abuse social services at home, there are a number of British travellers who through their own folly or carelessness get into trouble overseas, then selfishly expect the taxpayer to bail them out. The FCO team does what it can to help within the limited resources paid in to this work by Parliament, but not everyone will be happy, and not everyone who complains will have a fair case.

Pressed why the Ambassador did not go personally to the scene of a car-crash, say that he/she is paid to deal with high priority policy subjects – the Embassy has a team of trained experts for that sort of work, who did get there and responded properly.

Likely result? A howl of media and pseudo-public protest.

How dare you be so unfeeling? Don’t you care? Not about your silly policies, but about real people?

You say that you do indeed care, which is why HM Ambassadors are dealing with issues which affect the lives of millions of British citizens, not the very few in this case who indeed have experienced such a sad personal loss.

Keep saying the same thing every time an incident like this happens, using a strong firm adult leadership voice.

Eventually they’ll go away.