[A-List] Competing and collaborating imperialisms: UK and rest

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Sometimes the orchestration of what appears in the newspapers is more
obvious than at others. In this case, New Labour cheerleader Philip
Stephens gets to air concerns widely shared among various streams of the
New Labour-state-CBI nexus, that Tony is being too unfocused in his
foreign policy dealings. Cue a carefully phrased reply from Mr
Communications himself.



Smiles for Silvio, private dinners with Chirac
Tony Blair's promiscuity towards politicians of all colours risks making
pragmatism an end in itself, writes Philip Stephens
Financial Times: Mar 18 2002

Every now and then France's Jacques Chirac boards his presidential plane
for London. Arriving in the early evening, he dines with Tony Blair in
fashionable London restaurants such as Nobu and Pacific Oriental before
returning to the Elysee Palace a few hours later.

These quiet meetings go unpublicised and largely unnoticed. The two men
are each joined at the table by a single adviser. The diplomatic glitz
is reserved for the regular, formal Anglo-French summits, when the
centre-right president is accompanied by Lionel Jospin, France's
socialist prime minister.

On one level, there is nothing remarkable about these politically
intimate occasions. Britain and France are Europe's two military powers.
If the European Union is ever to build a serious foreign and security
policy, Paris and London must agree. Anyway, Mr Blair and Mr Chirac get
on, politically and personally.

What is interesting, though, is the way the friendship fits a pattern.
Mr Blair spent the weekend at the EU's Barcelona summit in alliance with
Spain's Jose Maria Aznar and Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. Early next month
he will visit George W. Bush's Texas ranch. Every one of these
interlocutors, of course, comes from the centre-right.

True, Mr Blair still turns up at the Third Way seminars of centre-left
leaders started when Bill Clinton was in the White House. But these are
now desultory affairs. The world has changed, and Bill's best buddy
wants to become George W's closest chum.

Germany's Gerhard Schroder counts, of course, but there is limited
personal chemistry between the New Labour prime minister and the social
democrat chancellor. As for the professorial Mr Jospin, his relationship
with the extrovert Mr Blair is described, in the best diplomatic
traditions, as "polite".

There is a question of temperament here. Mr Blair has never been a
tribal politician. He has long insisted that left and right no longer
define the important divides in politics. At home, Mr Blair seems far
more at ease in the company of entrepreneurs than with the trade union
bosses who finance New Labour. He likes success, abhors whingeing. I
imagine he would far rather spend an evening with BP's John Browne than
with, say, Bill Morris, the leader of the Transport and General Workers
Union.

So too, abroad. Serious socialists such as Mr Jospin are dour fellows.
The mercurial and slightly rakish Mr Chirac has a certain style. Mr
Blair sees the job of prime minister as promoting British interests and
projecting British power. Like that 19th century devotee of
balance-of-power politics, Lord Palmerston, he will take his friends
where he can find them.

Promiscuity has become a guiding principle. Britain's strategy in Europe
long consisted of a futile attempt to drive wedges between Germany and
France. The policy now is to build networks of overlapping alliances -
with this group on foreign policy, with that on economic liberalisation,
with yet another on social cohesion - that step around the Paris-Berlin
axis. It was a deal with Mr Aznar that began the EU's economic reform
process, and a Franco-British pact that kicked off European defence.

Mr Blair is unapologetic. His response to recent criticism from John
Monks, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, was blunt. "I
work with leaders from right round the world, whatever political party
their government is. I don't choose other countries' presidents."

It seems effective. For all the scorn his government has been attracting
in Britain's media, the prime minister is envied abroad. The close
relationship with Mr Bush defies conventional logic. The alliances
across Europe have delivered an influence denied to his predecessors.

But Mr Blair's new-found friendship with Mr Berlusconi has taken
realpolitik to the limit. Last month, at a summit in Rome the two men
launched a joint initiative aimed at liberalising Europe's employment
protection laws.

Mr Berlusconi is no ordinary politician of the centre-right. He is
majority owner of Italy's biggest private television company, its
biggest publishing house and its pre-eminent financial services group.
As prime minister, he controls state television. And, incredibly, he
claims with an air of offended innocence that there is no conflict of
interest. Oh, and he also faces corruption charges.

When Mr Blair went to Rome he was careful not to be too friendly - to
refer to his host as Mr Berlusconi rather than as Silvio. And when the
Italian suggested a quick return visit in London, Mr Blair made him an
offer he knew Mr Berlusconi would refuse. But these, I imagine, he
viewed as small concessions to political correctness. Mr Jospin, I am
told, was pretty much appalled by the British prime minister's
opportunism. So too were some in Mr Blair's cabinet.

Overall, Mr Blair has proved adroit in his conduct of foreign policy,
though he might reflect that those quiet dinners have won him French
support neither for economic liberalisation nor for military strikes
against Iraq. This week he will find himself in curious company again
when Margaret Thatcher gives her backing for a showdown with Saddam
Hussein. But in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, Mr Blair has shown
a courage and determination often missing at home. And, of course, he is
right to treat the world as it is, rather than as a centre-left
politician might like it to be.

There is a point, however, at which pragmatism becomes an end in itself.
Mr Blair has been outspoken in his advocacy of a moral dimension to
international affairs. Yet his own values are obscured by the what-works
opportunism. What was it that Disraeli said of Palmerston? "He will not
give trouble about principles."

Full article at:
http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3IIRU9XYC&live=true&useoverridetemplate=FTD1OUN2DNC&tagid=FTDNE3BOBNC&SectionTag=na/column&PageTag=2cophst&imgID=FTDZONVBONC&useoverridetemplate=FTD1OUN2DNC&SectionTag=na/column&PageTag=2cophst&imgID=FTDZONVBONC


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: National interest best served by alliances
Financial Times; Mar 19, 2002
By ALASTAIR CAMPBELL

>From Mr Alastair Campbell.

Sir, It is because he is usually well informed that Philip Stephens is
widely read, not just in UK political circles but by senior politicians
throughout the European Union. However, his column "Smiles for Silvio,
private dinners with Chirac" (March 18), which sought to present the
prime minister as being primarily interested in alliances with rightwing
leaders, represented a rare departure from his usual high standards.

Tony Blair does indeed see it as part of his job to get on well with
other leaders, whichever country or political background they come from.
It would be odd indeed if he did not work for a good and open
relationship with the president of the US, for example.

However, in seeking to make the case he did, Mr Stephens was wrong in
several regards. He is wrong to imply that Mr Blair has spent more time
with Jacques Chirac, the French president, than with Lionel Jospin, the
French prime minister. He is wrong in his characterisation of Mr Blair's
relationship with Gerhard Schroder, the German chancellor, which is
personally warm and which helped lead to their joint initiative on EU
reform, something that would have been unthinkable between a British and
a German leader a few years ago, Also, his claim that Silvio Berlusconi,
the Italian prime minister, was offered a date for a meeting in the
knowledge that he would not be able to make it, is nonsense. Mr Stephens
should also know that Italy was one of no fewer than seven countries
with which the UK developed joint initiatives in advance of the
Barcelona Summit.

The principles at work here, the existence of which Mr Stephens
questions, are the UK national interest and our belief that, on foreign
policy, it is often best served in alliance with others.

Alastair Campbell, Director of Communications and Strategy, 10 Downing
Street, London SW1A 2AA

Full article at:
http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=020319001419&query=Alastair+Campbell


Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland

michael.keaney@xxxxxx