Yes, the ‘elitist’ Foreign Office needs a new look - but not by changing the old paintings

As former diplomats lead calls for the elitist department to be replaced, the colonial artworks from an imperialist past are the least of the Foreign Office’s worries, argues Anthony Seldon

Grand designs: murals on display in the Whitehall institution (PA)

Victorian foreign secretary Lord Malmesbury had had a particularly good lunch, but was not amused when he sauntered back to his desk in the old Foreign Office in Downing Street to find that the ceiling had disobligingly collapsed onto his desk.

The whole office was indeed in a sad state. When foreign dignitaries visited the building, they were given to nervously eyeing the plaster, which was being held up by temporary beams. “It is opening up the whole nation to ridicule,” lamented The Times.  

Reputational damage provided the impetus for the current Foreign Office building to be erected at vast expense. The 17th-century terrace houses that had been built at the same time as No 10 and No 11 by rogue property speculator George Downing were razed to the ground to make way for the grand pile designed by George Gilbert Scott, which opened in 1868.