The Foreign Office has made such a shambles of something it is supposed to be good at that, it has become a world wide embarassment, forcing an apology from the Prime minister for its performance. This is disgraceful in itself, but especially so when taking into account the difficulties its ineptitude caused its frightened and abandoned citizens in this disintegrating and violent State. Their plight was made the more frustrating when they watched Poles, Turks, Dutch and others being cared for by their national officials and flown out of danger by planes which arrived in timely fashion.
Meanwhile rescue planes from Britain were held up by technical faults and health and safety issues. Coming on top of the shortcomings in the Ministry of Defence, a Home Office which got so bad it was described as unfit for purpose, and a Ministry of Agriculture that handled the foot and mouth outbreak so badly it had to be shut down altogether, this shows a worrying trend in the performance of these government departments over the last two decades. Not only do they, when under pressure, not know what they are doing, but they cannot even do that coherently.
I suspect that in this case there has been some advance military planning for armed rescue in extreme crisis, but nothing was in place for a normal hasty evacuation from one of many potentially unstable countries, where Brits work. This needs to be put right fast. It also begs the question of the size and cost of these public departments. They are top heavy and inefficient. Other countries with smaller establishments seem to do better. A nudge for George Osborne. There still could be another £billion or two available for his coffers.
Meanwhile William Hague is badly weakened at a critical time in foreign affairs. He has always struck me as a better parliamentary performer and conference rouser than a minister or party leader. This is not a good moment to fall short.