British Council promoting a little less trust and understanding?

Anyone who has worked with The British Council before will have their own horror story fond recollections of an institution that can be best described as idiosyncratic (or just plain batty if you've been on one of their Advanced Creative Writing Courses).

That's not to say they're not a worthwhile organisation...how much more worthwhile a Mission Statement can you get than this?

We build trust and understanding between people worldwide by enabling them to share ideas and knowledge. We call this cultural relations.

We believe the world is a more stable place when there is more trust and understanding between its peoples. Both the UK and the wider world benefit from the long term relationships we build.

Millions around the world, including teachers and learners, artists and sportspeople, scientists and policymakers, work with us and take part in our projects and programmes.

Ah...lovely innit?!
Unfortunately there will be a just little less trust and understanding being built in the future:

Hundreds of jobs are to go at the British Council as the organisation implements efficiency cuts.

The cultural relations and educational body, which is jointly funded by selling English language teaching services and a grant from the Foreign Office, is to lose a third of its UK workforce in the next two years

All sarcasm aside, the British Council's main worth is not the bizarre cultural offerings it too frequently offers up, but the extremely high level of English language teaching it provides both to students and non-native teachers of the language throughout the world. As a means of promoting the UK's image, it has performed a invaluable service and hopefully the axe won't fall too heavily on the teaching side of things.