Sorry, but it’s all foreign to me... and Boris Johnson!
INSIDE THE FOREIGN OFFICE Thursday, 9pm - BBC2
BELIEVE me, I can remember a time back in the Eighties when practically everyone I knew was trying to get a job in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Very few of them ever actually made it. I can think of one chap who failed to make the grade even though his father was a serving ambassador at the time. Who’d have thought nepotism wouldn’t win the day in this benighted country of ours?
Frankly, I have never quite understood what the requisites were that make someone eligible for that line of work in the first place. It goes without saying that those on the espionage side of things presumably need to go easy on the drink and be careful what they say in terms of pillow talk.
But any common or garden diplomats I’ve ever met were notable mainly for their ability to prattle on at length about nothing in particular. They also seem quite good at nodding enthusiastically and doing a reasonable job of pretending that they’re interested in whatever anyone is saying. Rather them than me.
I’ve given some thought regarding what the principle qualifications for the role seem to be. Unless I am mistaken, they involve being reasonably well turned-out, refraining from wiping your nose on your shirt sleeve and, perhaps most important of all, knowing which knife and fork to use when dining with dignitaries from more civilised nations.
Inside The Foreign Service is a new documentary series about Britain’s diplomatic corps, which is headed by Sir Simon McDonald. I’m sure he is a lovely chap, but Simon has an unfortunate tendency to look remarkably pleased with himself.
Apropos his chosen career path, he smirked: ‘Diplomacy is the art of letting other people have your way.’ Laugh? No, me neither.
Nor could I detect the sound of sides splitting all around the local neighbourhood, although perhaps my hearing is getting a bit dodgy at this stage.
The suggestion is that programme-makers were given unprecedented access for the purposes of this three-parter, but I always have my doubts when I hear that.
Who sets the ground rules? Where are the cameras allowed
to go? And, even more importantly, when?
It goes without saying that we live in troubled times. Forgive the cliché, but the world is on a knife edge. But Inside The Foreign Service still managed to be as dull as dishwater.
But that is hardly a surprise. By their very nature, diplomats are bland and uninteresting characters. They tend to be cagey, cautious and less than charismatic.
And so it was here. This was a programme populated by the sort of grey men in suits who you wouldn’t want to be stuck beside on a long bus journey.
I’m sure they’re good to their mothers and kind to animals, but they are hardly likely to be the life and soul of the party in their local pub on a Saturday night.
By far the most engaging aspect of it all was watching ex-foreign secretary Boris Johnson – recently appointed to the job at the time of filming – in action.
BoJo was seen bluffing and blustering during a speech, as well as being briefed by functionaries on the realities of global realpolitik.
Looking at these staff members, it was hard to avoid the suspicion that they felt they were dealing with an utter buffoon. But they’d have been far too diplomatic to say so, of course.