It's not exactly farewell to Ferrero Rocher, glittering receptions and the flashier parts of diplomatic life. But Britain's men and women in far-flung outposts are being ordered to work harder to promote trade, business and investment. Ethics may not be abandoned, but exports and contracts are now in, big time.
Taking its cue from David Cameron's wish to "refashion" Britain's external relations, the Foreign Office today confirmed the appointment of Simon Fraser, a top trade expert, as its permanent under-secretary – its senior civil servant. Colleagues described Fraser, 52, as a "platinum-level" technocrat whose experience in Paris, Brussels and in senior Whitehall jobs will help him galvanise his department into putting UK plc first.
It still seems unlikely, however, that any more than a handful of business people will be appointed as full-time ambassadors in the way that is common practice in the US.
William Hague, the foreign secretary, set out his stall in a speech in Tokyo last week, promising to "inject a new commercialism into the work of our foreign office and into the definition of … international objectives, ensuring that we develop the strong political relationships which will help British business to thrive overseas".
Hague followed this up with a speech to ambassadors at their annual conference and then with a message to every Foreign Office employee. These have clearly been noted. "Every submission and every brief for a visit now has to include the commercial interests," one senior official told the Guardian today. "The emphasis is new and genuine. It's being put into the bloodstream."
Economic issues, said another King Charles Street insider, are now as important as politics. "This organisation still culturally believes that the most important part of its work is strategic diplomacy, state-to-state relations and political analysis for ministers. That is going to shift. We are not starting from a zero base, but we are going to supercharge this activity." Hague will expect to be briefed on tariff barriers, regulatory issues and business when he meets his ambassadors in future.
Promoting British business has been a core mission of the Foreign Office for decades, though Cameron's approach reflects the search for value for money in strained financial times. Old-timers insist that the days when generalist diplomats could look down their noses at trade are long past. Lavish hospitality, playing croquet and sipping Pimm's on manicured lawns are no longer central to representing Britain.
"I am sorry that David Cameron feels he has to lead on an issue that is purely populist," complained Sir Brian Crowe, a former Foreign Office economics chief and ambassador to Austria. "British diplomats have been involved in commercial work with growing intensity for the past 20 years. Ambassadors need to be politically savvy, provide big-picture advice – and not try to sell widgets or services to people."
Others see sense behind the new approach. "When I joined 25 years ago, everyone said commercial work was the way to go," said a still-serving official who has been posted to the US, the Middle East and EU. "It was absolutely the flavour of the month. But it's not been so for the last 10 years. There are senior people in the office who say it's a waste of time and that the best way to help UK firms is to use ambassadorial influence to open doors to secure contracts."
Sir Ivor Roberts, formerly ambassador to Italy and Ireland, welcomed Cameron's shift. "In the seven or eight years of the last government we were actively discouraged on instructions from the Treasury – under Gordon Brown – from export promotion. If we had followed [the instruction] to the letter we would have broken off work trying to promote British companies overseas. We were told that the only thing that mattered was inward investment."
It seemed "absurd" when he was in Rome to walk away from the effort he put into working on British Gas operations in Italy. In Dublin in the early 2000s, Roberts built up the embassy's commercial section at a time when Ireland was the UK's fourth largest export market. But the section was later shut down. "Everyone in it was sacked or reposted," Roberts said. "It was so depressing and counter-intuitive."
The bulk of the day-to-day work of trade and export promotion is done by UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), jointly run by the Foreign Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Sir Andrew Cahn, its chief executive, sits on the Foreign Office board, as do three outside businessmen in non-executive positions. But diplomats admit that UKTI has long been seen as a "Cinderella" department which does not advance their career prospects. It prides itself, though, on providing value for money – generating £19 for every £1 of its budget.
Defence sales are to be a priority. Liam Fox, the defence secretary, has described increasing arms exports as an "essential aim". The renewed emphasis on arms sales – pushed by Margaret Thatcher, architect of al-Yamamah, the huge and controversial arms-for-oil deal with Saudi Arabia – will be welcomed by armed forces chiefs, the MoD and defence companies. Fox announced at the Farnborough Air Show this week that Britain had secured £7.2bn of new arms sales last year – a whopping 70% increase over the 2008 figure.
For all the "new commercialism", there seems little chance of many business people becoming ambassadors. The Foreign Office says that Hague, like his predecessors, "reserves the right" to make a small number of political appointments. But none of the handful of British ambassadors who come from outside the diplomatic service have been appointed because of their business acumen or experience.
The difficulty of finding a new trade minister suggests that even top Whitehall salaries are no match for the private sector. Mandarins have been here before. Robin Cook, pursuing his "ethical foreign policy" as well as trade, talked of recruiting outsiders, but never managed it. And no one wants to see businessmen chosen for political reasons. "Look at what the Americans do – and do not emulate it," warned Crowe. "They appoint people who contribute to party funds and then get sent to sexy posts like London where they are useless both commercially and politically."
Embassy coups
From loos to conflicts
What I would call the Ferrero Rocher side of diplomacy, though sometimes glamorous, can be excruciatingly dull. At the risk of overdramatisation, I will quote a few examples where I feel I earned my wages ...
• Persuading the local government in eastern Yemen (which was then a British protectorate) to install toilets in preparation for a visit by some VIPs from the UN.
• Passing a secret message from the Luxembourg monetary authority to the Bank of England about the need for tighter regulation of the BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International), which collapsed soon afterwards.
• Interceding with a Saudi prince to get a British lorry driver's flogging sentence commuted.
• Obtaining the release of a CIA double agent's British sidekick who had been tortured by the Libyan revolutionary committees.
• Leading a seminar on export promotion in the Russian ministry of foreign economic relations immediately after the end of the Soviet Union.
• Nobbling the Greek minister of foreign affairs in the middle of the night to urge restraint in a military confrontation with Turkey that looked like ending in shooting.
It is worth mentioning that, of these examples, only the Luxembourg business was conducted mainly in English. I was dismayed to learn recently that neither the Middle East director in the Foreign Office nor two of our ambassadors in important Gulf countries can speak Arabic.
Oliver Miles
Retired diplomat and the chairman of MEC International
A longer version of this piece can be found at guardian.co.uk/commentisfree