Foreign Office squirms on ‘genocide amendment’

‘The job of the Ministry of Agriculture is to look after farmers. The job of the Foreign Office is to look after foreigners.’ Or so jibed Norman Tebbit about Whitehall’s grandest department. In recent months Mr S has covered the antics of the Foreign Office (FCDO) with a cynical eye, as ministers and mandarins have done everything in their power not to offend President Xi Jinping and his lackeys in Beijing. Whether it’s foot-dragging on a boycott of the Winter Olympics or quietly trying to reopen trade talks with China, there’s every sign that in the corridors of power, the spirit of the ‘golden era’ never truly ended.

Take poor Amanda Milling, who covers the Asia brief. The hapless minister was ripped apart last month in a parliamentary debate over her department’s refusal to label China’s atrocities in Xinjiang as ‘genocide.’ Tory backbenchers queued up to lambast the FCDO’s prevarications and evasions, with one former minister labelling the use of ‘expensive government lawyers to weasel their way out of acting’ as a ‘truly reprehensible’ course of action.