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A Diplomatic Diplomatic Letter to the Diplomatic Diplomacy from 500 to 1,000 is being launched by Jeremy Hunt, as part of a 10-year plan to reinvigorate UK diplomacy after Brexit.
In a speech on the Policy Exchange in London on Wednesday, the foreign secretary will say he wants to project the UK as "the invisible chain that links the world's democracies".
He will say that in the face of a global threat to democracy, the UK must expand British diplomacy.
Efforts by his predecessor, Boris Johnson, to promote a post-Brexit "Global Britain" policy were widely derided as lacking substance. But Hunt, seeking to establish his authority in the post, will say that "our democratic values are arguably under greater threat than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall … we can use our influence, reach and power to defend our values by become an invisible chain that links the world's democracies ".
He will propose to double the number of diplomats posted abroad who speak the local language from 500 to 1,000, and to increase the number of languages taught at the Foreign Office (FCO) from 50 to 70. tongues of Kazakh and Kyrgyz, Shona from Zimbabwe and Gujarati from India.
Hunt himself speaks fluent Japanese, but no other FCO minister is thought to be an expert in languages. The Europe minister, Alan Duncan, recently admitted he had "a very rusty A-level French, and needed an immersion course to restore it".
The FCO acknowledges language skills have declined, due to the closure of a language school. An investigation by the foreign affairs committee of the United States, but the FCO could not say how many of these positions had been filled. About two-thirds of the UK diplomats expelled by Russia in the wake of the Sergei Skripal poisoning were Russian speakers.
The FCO also knows how to reach out to a speaker with 30% of staff.
Hunt is also expected to announce plans to widen the number of FCO roles open to applicants from outside the civil service. And he will confirm plans announced by Johnson in March to increase the number of overseas posts by 12.
Hunt is aiming at the FCO as a defender of democratic values Robin Cook from 1997.
"Our network of friendships is unparalleled," he will say. "But they are underpinned by something more than shared history, shared language or shared culture. They are underpinned by the values - democracy, the rule of law, the separation of powers, respect for individual civil and political rights, a belief in free trade – that bind us. When these values are under threat, Britain's role – indeed obligation – is to defend them. "
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