Inside the Foreign Office

In this first film, we follow the diplomats as they wrestle with a series of crises and challenges covering Burma to Russia.

In this second episode we join the Europe Director Caroline Wilson with Boris Johnson on their whistlestop tour from RAF Northolt to Lisbon and Paris. As diplomats prepare for the post-Brexit world, film-maker Michael Waldman eavesdrops on Foreign Office discussions around the globe: in Whitehall, in far-flung embassies in Nigeria and Mongolia, and even on the former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s private plane, as he switches from speaking English to French. We also examine how important trade with Commonwealth countries will become, and visit Lagos, where the traditional Queen’s Birthday Party proves an opportunity for Foreign Office staff to make connections with the vibrant characters in Nigerian business. And, in Mongolia, Her Majesty’s Ambassador Catherine Arnold meets the Mongolian President, encourages a British company to debut anti-pollution face masks at an annual fashion show, and visits a 10-billion dollar Rio-Tinto mine near the Chinese border.

In this final episode we meet Sophie Lott, a former probation officer who used to work with perpetrators of honour-based violence in east London. Now at the Foreign Office’s specialist Forced Marriage Unit, she works to help victims. Her latest case involves a 17 year-old girl who was orphaned in Britain and sent to live with relatives in Iraq. As the girl approaches her 18th birthday, Sophie has discovered that her family in Baghdad will kill her if she doesn’t agree to marry. Sophie works with the consul at the British Embassy in Baghdad to try to rescue the girl before she turns 18.