What does the Foreign Office do?

After listening to BBC Radio 5 over the last couple of days, I have found myself getting more and more angry about the British Government and its failure to help British nationals. The story of Claire and her husband is something I can relate to! She is in touch with her husband, barely, as he tries to leave Libya. Only problem is, he is really struggling to leave, and would like some help from the British Embassy. And they have not been in touch. At all. Ever. Even though they know he is there.

I have had a similar experience. Kashiwazaki suffered a very large earthquake (6.8) just over 3 years ago.

I was very lucky, that my apartment suffered no damage. Also, my girlfriend at the time was with me, so her experience and training kicked in, and she had me packing a bag and out the door! If left to myself, rather than leave for fear of aftershocks, I would have been puttering round my apartment trying to clean! Which apparently you dont do.

Also, my students where wonderful. All of them where very concerned about my welfare, and brought boxes of bottled water, packs of food, and other essentials whenever they came back to Geos for class! 

Overall, my apartment suffered only very minor damage. My girlfriend, understanding that coming from England means I have no idea what to do, looked after me, my students where wonderful and brought all sorts of stuff, and gave me useful advice. I was fine.

However, it would have been nice for the Embassy in Tokyo to just contact me to make sure I am OK! After all, I am a British national! The Embassy is there, in part, to assist British nationals in Japan! Did I hear anything? Not a thing. Zero. Nada. OK, it is up to the Japanese government to make sure everyone is OK in the aftermath of an earthquake. 

BUT it is listed as one of the Embassy's functions that they will try to make contact to make sure any British national is OK, and pass on information to family back in the UK.

Did I get any kind of contact? No. Did they know I was in Kashiwazaki? Yes. I am registered at the Embassy on this LOCATE database which is precisely for this reason.(You can see the information here) In the end, I had to struggle through a screwed up phone network to contact my family myself, running up a MASSIVE phone bill, when it would have been a lot easier for the Embassy to contact me, and pas the information back to London, who could then make an easy call to my family.

I am proud to be British. I like being British. 

I just have no faith in my own Government.