Britannia Radio

The idea is common that Brown is seeking to use the G20 summit in 
London in 25 days time to turn round his political position.

If one thinks about that idea for any other perspective than the mere 
'photo-ops' it will provide it is ludicrous.  The summit starts on 
April 2 and ends with - er - April 2!      The thought that a whole 
new economic global framework can be welded together in a few hours 
is preposterous, especially when the participants are all engaged in 
domestic fire fighting!  A smaller gathering could see the 
participants' 'sherpas' toiling away busily now so that an agreement 
on April 2 would merely  be a formality.  This is NOT happening.

So neither we, nor Brown, should place much store on the conference 
as a turning point.

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SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 8.3.09
The special relationship is a joke, and it isn't funny
Barack Obama should be careful how he treats the British - one day 
he'll need us, says Iain Martin.

By Iain Martin

When an American leader is preparing to meet his British counterpart 
it is said that an official usually offers one final piece of advice: 
"don't forget to mention the special relationship."

We Brits are seen as so needy that we will have a national, 
collective nervous breakdown unless we hear the magic words. In 
reality, the phrase has become a joke: the Americans know it, we know 
it and I suspect that they know we know it. Hillary Clinton could not 
disguise a knowing smirk when she used the words.

Last week, it was the turn of a new president to play this old game. 
How would Barack Obama handle Gordon Brown's visit to Washington? The 
answer, sadly, is badly.

He remembered to deploy the requisite term; but from the start of the 
trip, Team Obama behaved as though it simply could not be bothered 
having the British - their only allies of consequence in Afghanistan 
- in town. At first, there was to be no formal press conference; then 
the Americans agreed to a short Q&A in the Oval Office. But Number 10 
had to beg for it. Throughout, Obama looked, to this observer, 
indifferent to the whole business.

And then there were the presents. The Browns had taken a degree of 
care, arriving with a pen holder made from the timbers of HMS Gannet, 
an anti-slave trade ship, and a first edition of Gilbert's seven 
volume biography of Churchill. The Obama daughters received dresses 
and necklaces chosen by Sarah Brown.

Did the Obamas spend more than a few seconds thinking about gifts in 
return? For the Brown sons there were matching models of the 
President's helicopter, suggesting a last-minute dash by an aide to 
the White House gift shop. The grown-up Browns were even less lucky: 
they received a box of 25 DVDs, including ET, The Wizard of Oz and 
Psycho.

Small details, yes. But in diplomacy the micro-detail is often key to 
understanding the bigger picture. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan 
appreciated the importance of choreographing their appearances 
correctly. That they bothered enough to get it right shows how 
serious they were about wanting the world to understand that they 
shared a mission of extending economic freedom and winning the Cold War.

And that is the root of the problem. For all the PM's talk of the 
need for a global solution to the economic crisis, there is no shared 
American and British mission.

The first few months of Obama's presidency are turning into a car 
crash (last week, US unemployment hit a 25-year high). Consequently, 
his primary concerns are national, rather than international, his 
time too scarce for Brown's grand visions of global new deals and 
reformed regulatory structures. And anyway, when he does need to look 
abroad for economic partners, why would it be to Britain? His main 
focus will be China.

In April, of course, Obama and other world leaders will be in London 
for the G20 summit. Sadly for Brown, the handshakes and communiqués 
will not mark the birth of his imagined new order - rather, the 
framework of markets and trade will be reconstructed over the course 
of a decade and more. And there will not be much demand for the 
services of an architect of the previous system, which has collapsed 
with such dramatic consequences. The contract for rebuilding is as 
unlikely to be handed to Gordon Brown as it is to Alan Greenspan.

Consider this: Obama is only starting his period in office. He will, 
conceivably, hold power until January 2017. Where will Brown be then? 
Where will he be in 15 months?

And what of the wider "special relationship"? Obama is not the first 
new president to seek to "date other people". Many before him have 
begun their first term in pursuit of a broader range of allies, such 
as the French and the Germans, on matters military and in the sharing 
of intelligence. They usually discover that all that is on offer in 
the field is extra help with the catering duties. For sustained co-
operation, the Brits have the best track record.

However, thanks to the economic crisis, there is a real and 
depressing possibility that the outcome may be different this time. 
True, most of America's potential friends are in a poor condition 
thanks to the economic climate. But Britain, with its wrecked public 
finances and unbalanced economy, is in an atrocious position. It will 
take decades of hard work, narrowly focused on the restoration of 
national prosperity, before we can step forward as an attractive ally 
once more. What a legacy for that great global show-off Tony Blair: 
the seeds of this decline were sown during his premiership.

All this depresses the life out of an Atlanticist such as me, who is 
immensely proud of the good that has come from the alliance between 
our two countries. Yet, we may be entering a period when the UK's 
concerns will be a good deal more prosaic. In the hard years ahead 
there will be little time, energy and money left over for British 
global grandstanding.