Whenever something bad happens to a Brit abroad the news item invariably mentions that the hapless individuals have been “offered consular assistance”. Ever wondered what form that assistance actually takes? According to Alan Fairs of the Foreign Office, it means “We’ve told them our phone number” while “receiving consular assistance” means “They’ve spoken to us and been told it’s nothing to do with us. Especially at weekends.”
While on the subject of jargon, former Foreign Secretary William Hague, who made it a personal mission to ban the use of words such as ‘ongoing’ and ‘strategic’ in his department, revealed, “Ongoing is code for ‘nowhere near finished’ while a ‘strategic plan’ is a piece of work that is taking longer than normal and ‘We’re going through the options’ means by the time this policy comes back you won’t recognise it.”
