The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a department of the United Kingdom government. It is responsible for protecting and promoting UK interests worldwide. It was created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.
The head of the FCO is the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, commonly abbreviated to "Foreign Secretary" (currently William Hague). This position is regarded as one of the four most prestigious appointments in the Cabinet, alongside those of Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary. Together with the Prime Minister, these are the Great Offices of State.
The FCO is managed from day-to-day by a civil servant, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who also acts as the Head of the Diplomatic Service. Since the end of August 2010, this position has been occupied by Simon Fraser.
Read more about Foreign And Commonwealth Office: Ministers, History of The Foreign and Commonwealth Office Main Building, Devolution
Famous quotes containing the words foreign, commonwealth and/or office:
“Man-in-seed, in seed-at-zero,
From the star-flanked fields of space,
Thunders on the foreign town
With a sand-bagged garrison....”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Was I not born in this Realm? Were my parents born in any foreign country?... Is not my Kingdom here? Whom have I oppressed? Whom have I enriched to other’s harm? What turmoil have I made to this Commonwealth that I should be suspected to have no regard of the same?”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
“These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, staccato ideas.... But they have no slow, big ideas. And the fewer consoling, noble, shining, free, jovial, magnanimous ideas that come, the more nervously and desperately they rush and run from office to office and up and downstairs, thinking by action at last to make life have some warmth and meaning.”
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)