Thread by @alexhallhall

I'm quoted in this article about the decline of the FCDO saying: "The job of foreign secretary no longer necessarily goes to a minister with a long record of thinking about the Uk's strategic challenges..(cont) ..ft.com/content/422629…

"It is a top prize - one of the top cabinet posts that is given to politicians for their loyalty, or to keep them quiet, or out of the country."

Couple of other quotes in the article came from me also, uncited, including the comments about officials now self-censoring, unable to give honest advice for fear of being accused of being a "Remainer" who can't be trusted. I experienced that directly.

The FCDO is indeed in sad decline. Lots of talented, dedicated individuals, but poor leadership, budget cuts, sidelining on policy...and yes, perhaps too much internal complacency, means we've lost our way

For many years now, long before I resigned, I felt we had become too obsessed with process (internal and external) and public messaging, rather than substance and strategy. We say lots of the right things, are engaged in most places..but not sure about impact..esp post Brexit.

By virtue of Brexit, we are less and less often "In the room where it happens", and we have to needlessly duplicate effort in every EU capital where we once automatically engaged in Brussels

We also lose access to the knowledge and contacts of our EU partners in embassies around the world, and have to work much harder to influence them...thereby also reducing our value as a partner to others, such as the US.

We still have valuable soft and hard power resources, network of global contacts, good brains. But we're much less effective now. I see Truss making big, bold foreign policy statements, eg on Ukraine, or Iran, or China etc. But do they really care?

Or do they see a diminished country, with fewer friends, smaller aid and foreign policy budgets, tangled in arguments with our neighbors, economy shrinking, trade falling, a leader whose lost his credibility? And think.."Whatever? Serves the smug British right."

"They've lectured us for years, but now they're the ones in a mess. "

It's not a happy feeling..I write this not with any "I told you so" glee. We're all paying the price for this government's failures.