SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 5.4.09
All that G20 pomp will never impress the voters
The summit marked the rise of the "neo-conference-holders", or "neo-
confs", who believe in multilateralism for its own sake but have
little grasp of reality, says Matthew d'Ancona. [EXTRACTS ONLY]
By Matthew d'Ancona
I will say one thing for New Labour: they still know how to throw a
party. Twelve years after the national carnival of Tony Blair's first
election victory, Gordon Brown hosted his own celebration in London,
this time to mark the collapse of the world's economy. All the guests
were invited to come in fancy dress, pretending to be statesmen
capable of solving the global crisis. There were themed dinners,
photographers, party bags, rides in special cars, hugs all round.
Everyone seems to have had a lovely time.
As Gordon announced the contents of the G20 summit's communiqué, I
bet his thoughts tended back to March 2003 and Tony Blair's failure
to secure a second UN resolution against Iraq. You see, Tony! It's a
piece of cake to get them all to agree - you just have to know how.
And how sweet for Brown to be so visibly anointed as the First Friend
by President Obama. Again, what a contrast with Blair: nobody else
wanted to be George W Bush's best mate. Everybody else wants to be
Barack Obama's best mate. Perhaps for the first time in his life,
Gordon Brown found out last week what it felt like to be one of the
cool kids in school.
[- - - - - - - - -]
For a day, the world swooned before the political pageantry, the
choreographed pseudo-negotiations and the riot of self-congratulation
by world leaders scribbling their names into the history books. But,
once the smelling salts had been applied, it became apparent that all
was not what it seemed. The Prime Minister had merely globalised his
favourite Budget technique of re-announcing sums of money,
aggregating them so that he appeared to be unveiling brand new cash
pledges to the IMF. Presented as solid commitments, many of these
figures turned out to be mere targets. Even the $250 billion promised
for trade finance over the next two years was mostly existing money
re-packaged with a pretty party bow. This summit was undoubtedly a
breakthrough for motorcades, police protection, fine catering and the
art of mutual back-slapping. It was not a breakthrough for economic
policy.
Inevitably, it was left to Alistair Darling to face the music in the
Commons, away from the stardust and the chloroform of political
celebrity. Vince Cable noted that "Paragraph 15 of the communiqué has
an ambitious commitment to what it describes as 'tough new principles
on pay and compensation'. What does that mean for the British banks,
particularly the nationalised banks? I was told today that the Royal
Bank of Scotland is proposing to double the pay of its senior
management from an average of £150,000 to £300,000 to compensate for
the loss of bonuses. Is that true, and, if so, will the Government
stop it?" Mr Darling evaded the question.
[- - - - - - - - -]
Brown and Obama hope to gather power to themselves in conference
chambers and smile for the camera as they bask in its aura. But true
power is disaggregating and decentralising: we live in a wiki-world
now, in which voters are indifferent to the ceremonial of politics
and would rather watch Daniel Hannan MEP tear the PM to pieces on
YouTube than see Brown saying. well, anything really.
Gordon may get a temporary poll bounce from this conference: in
private, David Cameron has long predicted that the PM would surge one
last time at some point in 2009. But today's public is not impressed
by the pomp of such summits, or the inventory of achievements that Mr
Brown read out like a headmaster on speech day. The voters are much
more interested in the propriety of Michelle Obama hugging the Queen.
And as for $1.1 trillion unveiled on Thursday? The British electorate
stopped trusting Labour statistics years ago, and will take little
notice of Mr Brown's claim to have raised yet more gazillions for the
good of us all. When they vote, the figure they are much likelier to
remember is the £10 that Jacqui Smith and her husband had to repay to
the taxpayer for the porn films he watched on expenses. The politics
of the summit is as remote from the politics of the hard-pressed
voters as it is possible to be. [- - - - - - -]
----------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew d'Ancona is Editor of 'The Spectator'
===============================
Other extracts relating to that meeting ---
A. Sunday Telegraph
1. Martin Broughton, president of CBI and chairman of British Airways
"---let's be clear: there was always going to be a joint communiqué
of sorts. Had the meeting collapsed without agreement, G20 leaders
could predict the catastrophic effect this would have had on global
financial markets, and as President Sarkozy said in the run-up to the
summit: "Failure is not an option.""
2. By Martin Vander Weyer, editor of 'Spectator Business
"Last week was a triumph for summitry and spin, but the Prime
Minister should beware of burdening the country with even more debt.
- - - - - - -
The G20 communiqué has already been picked to pieces by those
familiar with Brown's fiscal sleight of hand. How much of that "$1.1
trillion" is really new, or really real? How long before half of
those 20 nations cite national interests that oblige them to breach
the commitment to abstain from protectionism - and why couldn't they
fix a timetable for the completion of the Doha trade talks? How long
will it take to do the detail of global regulation for banks and
hedge funds, and how likely is it that the key players will still
agree when they get down to the nitty-gritty? But it was the mood
music that mattered.
In the global car industry too there has been some pick-up in sales
[ ??? S.Telegraph today "Car industry crisis deepens as sales slump"
AND the US government has given General Motors (inc Vauxhall and
Opel) and Chrysler a time limit to sort themselves out or bankruptcy
will result -cs]
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
B. Sunday Times
1. Alistair Darling: I was wrong on recession
THE chancellor, Alistair Darling, has admitted that he and his
Treasury officials got it wrong over the length and severity of the
recession
and that he will be forced to tear up his economic predictions.
He will slash his growth forecast in the budget and warn that there
will be no economic recovery until the end of the year, dashing hopes
that last week's G20 summit will be followed by an early upturn.
"It's worse than we thought," Darling said this weekend.
In his April 22 budget, the chancellor will predict that the economy
will slide by at least 3% this year, its worst single-year
performance since the second world war and three times the rate of
decline that he forecast in November in his prebudget report.
The weaker growth forecast will mean public borrowing in the coming
fiscal year will be well above the £118 billion level that Darling
had predicted six months ago, renewing fears about the sustainability
of public finances. Independent economists say borrowing could hit
£150 billion or more.
2. Big spender Gordon Brown vs Scrooge nation
Martin Ivens
On one topic Labour and Tory are united: the media have been biased
in their reporting of the G20 London summit. [- - - - - -] , Kevin
Rudd, the Australian prime minister, commiserated with David Miliband
about the poor coverage Gordon Brown was getting for his efforts to
save the world. By the end of the week, however, it was the Tories'
turn to snipe about the "herd-like" media's applause for the prime
minister's trillion-dollar package.
[- - - - - - - - -] The week before, Jacqui Smith's expenses were all
the rage; this week it was the G20, next it will be something else,"
reasons a Tory bigwig. That something else - unless the spouse of
another cabinet minister is caught gawping at the Adult Channel - is
likely to be the size of the government's deficit. On April 22 it's
budget time again.
The chancellor's keynote speech is likely to be full of woe, even if
his own forecasts of economic growth aren't as bad as those of other
international economic organisations. [But he's had another good look
and he's much gloomier ..see above ,,,-cs] The decision to put off
the budget until after the G20 summit looks like a serious mistake.
You get the bad news out first, before delivering the good stuff.
If the Tories wish to seal the deal with the electorate, this must be
the moment they make their mark. Last October Osborne set his party's
face firmly against the government spending more billions to reflate
the country out of recession, taking the view that you shouldn't go
on pumping air into a burst tyre.
The transformation of the Tory leadership from benign figures in the
age of plenty into the Scrooges of the age of scarcity is nowhere
near complete. Cameron still has to find a way of looking
parsimonious in the public interest. He must make our flesh creep
with tales that Britain faces becoming a second-rate nation again, as
in the 1970s, unless we mend our ways. The prime minister derides
this stance as "do-nothing". But since their isolation last year, the
Tories have acquired some powerful allies.
Merkel's refusal to take lectures from a spendthrift Brown might have
been predicted, but the intervention of Mervyn King, governor of the
Bank of England, was not. By warning against the dangers of borrowing
billions on an uncertain outcome, the governor thrust a dagger at the
heart of No 10.
No 11 has also subtly distanced itself from No 10. Alistair Darling
is likely to be chancellor only until June next year, whether or not
Labour wins the next election. [- - - - - - - - -] So the chancellor
knows he must look to his own legacy. Although some economists argue
that Britain has sustained much higher levels of spending in its
history, Darling is unlikely to raid the piggy bank again. He has the
governor of the Bank on his shoulder and he cannot afford another
misfiring auction of government debt like the last one. [Any success
here is merely a postponement of the day of reckoning -cs]
The Tories have a receptive audience among voters, too. The
government has spent far too much already, say the polls. More debts
will have to be repaid by higher taxes, sooner rather than later. No
10 has already put off a comprehensive spending review to address the
new austerity. "The danger is Gordon will still be painted as the
spend, spend, spend guy of the present," says a gloomy Labour
dissident. "Unless we make it clear we are prepared to take difficult
decisions about how we are going to balance the budget, we will hand
the card of economic competence to Osborne and the future to the
Tories."
Brown wants to fight the next election on the grounds of substance
versus flimsiness, investment v cuts, just as if this were a rerun of
the 2001 campaign against William Hague. This made sense in a period
when the public put a priority on public spending over tax cuts. Yet
the ground has shifted.
The Tories now have room to warn of a hidden Labour tax bombshell at
the next election. Brown will be praying in turn that the green
shoots in the housing market on both sides of the Atlantic point to
recovery. Whether his efforts to save our economy or the world have
any relevance to that recovery is immaterial. Hyperactivity, summitry
and the rest are a necessary part of his theatre of politics. The
medium is his message.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
C. OBSERVER
"fter Obama's classy toast to the host, the rest of the leaders
clapped Gordon Brown.
Then, suddenly, Nicolas Sarkozy sprang up from the table and made a
dash for the door. The applause had barely finished before the French
president was hurtling out of the VIP suite in the summit red zone
and speeding in the direction of the yellow zone where the media were
camped waiting for the closing statements. Sarko was determined to
get in front of the cameras before his host. [Sorry but couldn;t
find anything more insightful in that paper! -cs]
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sunday, 5 April 2009
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