For the past six months, five British hostages have been held captive in Iraq. You could be forgiven for having forgotten about them. Since an IT consultant and his four bodyguards were seized by kidnappers in the finance ministry in Baghdad, precious little has been heard of them. Contrast that with Alan Johnston, the BBC’s Gaza correspondent. After he was captured a worldwide campaign was launched for his release, a campaign that he later said had given him enormous comfort. It also put considerable pressure on his kidnappers. Or think of an earlier era and the kidnappings of John McCarthy, Terry Waite and the other Beirut hostages. Or even the hapless sailors seized by the Iranians.

The five British hostages in Iraq are, in sharp contrast, almost forgotten - and for good reason. After they were captured the Foreign Office imposed an effective news blackout, urging newspapers not to identify them or contact their families. Officials said that to do so would endanger their lives and make the task of those negotiating their release much harder. Faced with such entreaties, newspapers have only one course of action: nobody wants to risk causing harm to hostages or play into the hands of their captors.

Six months later the Foreign Office softly-softly approach looks increasingly dubious. Not only has lack of publicity deprived the hostages, who have access to satellite television, of the comfort of knowing that others care about their plight, but it has also eased pressure on the government to bring about their release. Today we bring news that a video passed from the kidnappers to British officials shows the hostages to be in good health and well cared for. But their release is no closer. The kidnappers want an Iranian-backed militia leader to be released in exchange for the hostages’ freedom, something Britain is powerless to bring about even if it were desirable. So the risk is that the hostages will remain in captivity. And, thanks to the Foreign Office, they will continue to believe that nobody cares.