Is it game over for euro bailout Troika?
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James Kirkup
James Kirkup is Deputy Political Editor for the Daily Telegraph and telegraph.co.uk. Based at Westminster, he has been a lobby journalist since 2001. Before joining the Telegraph he was Political Editor of the Scotsman and covered European politics and economics for Bloomberg.
David Cameron defends Little Englanders. Can he really do Bilderberg and Broxtowe?
Cameron's talents are being stretched (Photo: Reuters)
It is "patronising" to dismiss the concerns of people worried about national sovereignty, Britain's place in the world and immigration. They’re not little Englanders, they’re decent folk with reasonable concerns. So says David Cameron in Essex today.
Which is fair enough, and surely sensible politics. A fair part of the recent rise of Ukip can likely to be put down to a feeling among some voters that the mainstream political class looks down on them for their fears and worries; that the smart London chaps in smart suits are more interested in hobnobbing with other smart people in Brussels, Washington and elsewhere than in thinking about unemployment in Blackburn or the price of groceries in Asda in Warrington.
Still, I can’t help wondering if Mr Cameron struck the same note on Friday night when he dropped by the Bilderberg Group’s meeting in Watford. Because of the bonkers conspiracy theorists, it’s easy to write off Bilderberg as politically irrelevant.
In truth, it isn’t a cabal of intergalactic lizards, it’s just another talking shop for the global power-elite. And that’s why it matters politically.
Mr Cameron, as you will know, believes that Britain is now competing in a global race. He thinks that you, dear voter, are aware of the rise of China and the other BRICs, of the emergence of a new economic world order in which Britain can no longer take for granted a seat at the top table.
That’s why he goes to Bilderberg, to Davos and elsewhere: talking to the sort of rootless, stateless politico-corporate types in Hermes ties you find in such places is, he believes, an important part of keeping that seat.
Hence all the talk about that global race, all the hard work and attention given to trade deals and the like, and all the foreign trips on planes crammed with business types who then sign deals in far-off lands.
But that new world order isn't easy to swallow. Some voters today, supporters not just of Ukip but other parties too, seem unhappy with it, wishing (sometimes explicitly, sometimes by implication) that we could go back to the way things used to be – a simpler, stronger and yes, whiter Britain.
Those feelings explain Coalition efforts that are harder to reconcile with the idea of boosting competitiveness and trade at all costs. These efforts include threats to leave the European Union that unnerve global corporate types and (quietly) a few Tories too. And a willingness to bash the “morally repugnant” – but legal – tax arrangements of big companies which have a choice about where they do their business. And an immigration cap that even Conservative ministers privately fear curbs economic growth.
A while ago, I suggested that immigration highlights a fundamental tension in Mr Cameron’s strategy: can the UK both close its doors to many foreigners while seeking the best of the global talent pool?
More recently, Bagehot captured the wider contradictions more elegantly, suggesting that the “global race” is the right diagnosis of Britain’s condition, but taking issue with the PM’s chosen prescription.
What is the Prime Minister for? Or more pertinently, where is he for? Davos or Dewsbury? Bilderberg or Broxtowe? David Cameron is trying to be the man for both, to forge ahead in a globalised world while keeping his feet planted firmly in British (English?) nationalist sentiment. Trying to have your cake and eat it is understandable and natural: no one likes having to make binary choices, especially choices that inevitably leave somebody disappointed.
So it might be a bit churlish to criticise Mr Cameron for trying to have it both ways. But at the very least, it should be said that reconciling the two themes Mr Cameron has identified today into a single, coherent political message is going to be very difficult indeed.
Mr Cameron's friends say he is good at the political and intellectual contortions required to reflect contradictory ideas. Some even resort to poetry, quoting Walt Whitman:
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
And to be fair, the PM is a good communicator, probably still the best in active British politics today. But attempting to present himself as both a 21st Century globalist and a traditional British populist is likely to stretch his talents to their limits.
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Britain will not get “special treatment” from EU members to stay in the single market, MPs will warn as they urge Conservatives to be realistic about attempts to repatriate powers from Brussels.
The Commons foreign affairs committee will say on Tuesday it is
sceptical that member states would allow the UK to water down
integration and repatriate powers
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d3d2531c-d1fc-11e2-9336-00144feab7de.html
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