Incredible.Labour trashes the economy causing a fall in the value of the pound, and cut-backs are made in the security of one the major sources of the terrorist threat to this country.
Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said: “The cuts that Baroness Kinnock mentions are the direct consequence of Labour’s decision to remove the FCO’s protection against exchange rate movements. This momentous decision happened on David Miliband’s watch and the buck rests with him. There has never been a full explanation of how this happened and whether Foreign Office Ministers took their eye off the ball. It is time that the truth is known and the full extent of the damage done to British diplomacy overseas laid bare."
It is bizarre that FCO expenditure on counter-terrorism programmes are dependent on the volatilities of global exchange rates. Cranmer had no idea that British foreign policy was tied to the rupee.
Apparently, this is a direct result of Mr Miliband’s decision to withdraw the Overseas Price Mechanism protection during the October spending review.
Sir Peter Ricketts, Parliamentary Under Secretary at the FCO, has also revealed that as a result of huge budgetary pressures, there is a ‘question mark over whether we can maintain the number of people we have abroad’, and said he ‘would not rule out’ the possibility that the UK will have to close embassies overseas.
But that is no cause for concern.
Because we now have a global EU diplomatic service, with EU ambassadors and EU embassies, all duplicating (supplanting/usurping) the functions of Her Majesty’s embassies overseas.
