Foreign Secretary William Hague performed a diplomatic dance-move yesterday which he hopes will wrong-foot Muammar Gaddafi.
Britain has expelled the Libyan despot’s embassy team and recognised the rebels’ national transitional council as the “sole government authority”.
This is a new tactic for Brits, and, if the ghosts of Mr Hague’s predecessors were yesterday pacing the corridors of the Foreign Office, many of them would have stroked their beards in scepticism.
The UK is using diplomatic recognition as a way of trying to shape the future. The Government does not like the spectacle of Gaddafi remaining in power, and it is aware that months of aerial bombardment and the rhetoric of the Arab Spring have not ignited a revolution in Tripoli.
Britain is now elevating the status of the council it hopes will one day be in charge of Libya, even though it is manifestly not today.
Traditionally, the UK has taken an unromantic view of diplomatic recognition: you identify who pulls the levers of power in a country and you deal with them.
This is why Britain recognised Communist-run China in 1950, not long after its founding in October 1949.
In contrast, the United States has an aversion to recognising governments run by people it regards as thuggish and hostile. It did not establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China until 1979.
This latest stage in our embrace of the rebels suggests we are becoming more American in our foreign policy, more idealistic – which is not something one would have expected when William Hague won the keys to his impressive office.
However, Britain has not abandoned realpolitik. This is a calculated gamble by a Government that insists it is not under time pressure but must keenly hope that the intervention in Libya does not come with a billion-pound price tag.
It now seems unthinkable that there will be a Tahrir Square moment in Libya in which the country’s different factions come together in an outstanding moment of unity and force an epoch-defining moment of change.
If polarisation intensifies between we may be witnessing the de facto partition of Libya. Neighbouring Sudan has shown it is possible for a country to split in two, and our military campaign will not have been a wasted effort if it has prevented the type of bloodbath that tore through the African state.
Nevertheless, hard thinking needs to take place in Britain about when and how we recognise countries, not least because the Palestinian Authority may shortly ask us to consider its territory as an independent state. Do we see the world as we wish it was or how it is?
A Thursday Column
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
David Foster Wallace on Worship
There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already -- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power -- you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart -- you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.
Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.
Read More
Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.
Read More
Saturday, July 23, 2011
The Love Deficit
David Cameron enjoys offering racing tips but if he wishes to enjoy a healthy night’s sleep he should stay away from the bookies.
One well-known high street player is offering odds of 5/1 that the Prime Minister will be the next MP to leave the Cabinet.
Yes, he is under extreme pressure over the discussions he may have had with News International about the future of BSkyB, and his relationship with former News of the World editor Andy Coulson is an albatross so heavy a less broad-shouldered PM might crumple.
But to suggest to people that there is just as great a chance that Mr Cameron will be ousted from Downing Street as there is that Baroness Warsi will be dropped from the Cabinet seems extraordinary, if not hysterical.
In contrast, Nick Clegg, who has had to face the humiliation of the lost AV vote is at 33/1.
The same bookmaker is offering odds of 2/1 that David Cameron will be replaced as Conservative leader before the next general election.
Such pessimism about his prospects will not cheer him up, but what might send a chill down his spine is the knowledge it would be his own party which drops any guillotine.
“Flip,” he might think. “Tony Blair survived the Eccleston affair, the mockery of the WI, fuel protests, fun in the sun with Berlusconi, the Iraq invasion, cash for honours, and his party didn’t push him off the stage for about three million years. What have I done wrong?”
The answer may be that many, many Labour activists loved what early-era Blair did to Labour while Conservatives do not look at the coalition and beam with such brilliant pride.
Blair took a party that for years was about as fashionable as earmuffs and positioned it at the heartbeat of the zeitgeist.
To be cool was to be at a party in Downing Street with the Prime Minister and a Britpop musician.
Yes, Blair jettisoned Clause Four and some socialist creeds, but this was done in the spirit of a rock star throwing a TV off a hotel balcony. He was a dude who won two landslides and nobody was about to stop the party.
But do the Tory faithful like the policy cocktails Mr Cameron and his Lib Dem friends serve up?
The social conservatism that defined past manifestos has been muted and there is sometimes a faint grumble that if hoodie-hugging did not win the last election, why should it work next time round?
Mr Cameron knows that elections are won in the centre ground, but he may need to remind the supposedly faithful of that fact.
A Thursday Column
One well-known high street player is offering odds of 5/1 that the Prime Minister will be the next MP to leave the Cabinet.
Yes, he is under extreme pressure over the discussions he may have had with News International about the future of BSkyB, and his relationship with former News of the World editor Andy Coulson is an albatross so heavy a less broad-shouldered PM might crumple.
But to suggest to people that there is just as great a chance that Mr Cameron will be ousted from Downing Street as there is that Baroness Warsi will be dropped from the Cabinet seems extraordinary, if not hysterical.
In contrast, Nick Clegg, who has had to face the humiliation of the lost AV vote is at 33/1.
The same bookmaker is offering odds of 2/1 that David Cameron will be replaced as Conservative leader before the next general election.
Such pessimism about his prospects will not cheer him up, but what might send a chill down his spine is the knowledge it would be his own party which drops any guillotine.
“Flip,” he might think. “Tony Blair survived the Eccleston affair, the mockery of the WI, fuel protests, fun in the sun with Berlusconi, the Iraq invasion, cash for honours, and his party didn’t push him off the stage for about three million years. What have I done wrong?”
The answer may be that many, many Labour activists loved what early-era Blair did to Labour while Conservatives do not look at the coalition and beam with such brilliant pride.
Blair took a party that for years was about as fashionable as earmuffs and positioned it at the heartbeat of the zeitgeist.
To be cool was to be at a party in Downing Street with the Prime Minister and a Britpop musician.
Yes, Blair jettisoned Clause Four and some socialist creeds, but this was done in the spirit of a rock star throwing a TV off a hotel balcony. He was a dude who won two landslides and nobody was about to stop the party.
But do the Tory faithful like the policy cocktails Mr Cameron and his Lib Dem friends serve up?
The social conservatism that defined past manifestos has been muted and there is sometimes a faint grumble that if hoodie-hugging did not win the last election, why should it work next time round?
Mr Cameron knows that elections are won in the centre ground, but he may need to remind the supposedly faithful of that fact.
A Thursday Column
Thursday, July 14, 2011
A New Tradition
It can be tremendous fun to take part in a tradition but it is even more exciting to start one.
The French will today celebrate Bastille Day, and it is possible that on March 3,2111 children will ride on hoverboards around the Senedd (by now one of the oldest buildings in Cardiff) to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the day Wales voted for full legislative competence in 20 strictly defined areas of responsibility.
Of course, it is conceivable that scientific breakthroughs will ensure key players in the referendum saga are still around on this date to regale the youngsters with the legend of the No campaign’s floating pig, but it is more likely that this particular trip to the ballot box will be outshone in the popular memory by far more dramatic events which will shape our self-identity.
Wales has grand moments of tragedy and glory in its past which define today’s political culture and episodes of just as great glory and cataclysm await.
Politicians, particularly on the left of the spectrum, still feel the reverberations of the Chartist Uprising, the Tonypandy Riots and the miners’ strikes.
Similarly, the memory of the Aberfan disaster informs every Welsh politician and may be one reason why public safety – whether in the promotion of the smoking ban or school bus standards – has been such a priority for the Assembly.
But just as ministers in the first years of the Assembly’s life didn’t expect to be tested by the foot and mouth outbreak and the worldwide adjustment to life after the September 2011 attacks, only the most foolhardy pundit would try and name the defining themes of the next decades with any swagger of certainty.
One of the most striking poems of recent times is For the Anniversary of My Death by MS Merwin. In it, he acknowledges that “without knowing it I have passed the day” on which, at some point in the future, he will leave behind this life.
It is chilling to think of the catastrophes which could test this country in the years ahead, but Wales also has the chance to create anniversaries worthy of the most ebullient celebrations and forge traditions that will energise and inspire.
Without knowing it, we may be passing the anniversary of the day when a Welsh person perfects the hydrogen fuel cell, harnesses nuclear fusion, negotiates peace in the Middle East or reintroduces the unicorn to Montgomeryshire.
The bruises of post-war industrial decline have created bastilles which need to be stormed but if today’s leaders can nurture a modern Welsh tradition as audacious as it is creative and generous then revolution awaits.
A Thursday column
The French will today celebrate Bastille Day, and it is possible that on March 3,2111 children will ride on hoverboards around the Senedd (by now one of the oldest buildings in Cardiff) to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the day Wales voted for full legislative competence in 20 strictly defined areas of responsibility.
Of course, it is conceivable that scientific breakthroughs will ensure key players in the referendum saga are still around on this date to regale the youngsters with the legend of the No campaign’s floating pig, but it is more likely that this particular trip to the ballot box will be outshone in the popular memory by far more dramatic events which will shape our self-identity.
Wales has grand moments of tragedy and glory in its past which define today’s political culture and episodes of just as great glory and cataclysm await.
Politicians, particularly on the left of the spectrum, still feel the reverberations of the Chartist Uprising, the Tonypandy Riots and the miners’ strikes.
Similarly, the memory of the Aberfan disaster informs every Welsh politician and may be one reason why public safety – whether in the promotion of the smoking ban or school bus standards – has been such a priority for the Assembly.
But just as ministers in the first years of the Assembly’s life didn’t expect to be tested by the foot and mouth outbreak and the worldwide adjustment to life after the September 2011 attacks, only the most foolhardy pundit would try and name the defining themes of the next decades with any swagger of certainty.
One of the most striking poems of recent times is For the Anniversary of My Death by MS Merwin. In it, he acknowledges that “without knowing it I have passed the day” on which, at some point in the future, he will leave behind this life.
It is chilling to think of the catastrophes which could test this country in the years ahead, but Wales also has the chance to create anniversaries worthy of the most ebullient celebrations and forge traditions that will energise and inspire.
Without knowing it, we may be passing the anniversary of the day when a Welsh person perfects the hydrogen fuel cell, harnesses nuclear fusion, negotiates peace in the Middle East or reintroduces the unicorn to Montgomeryshire.
The bruises of post-war industrial decline have created bastilles which need to be stormed but if today’s leaders can nurture a modern Welsh tradition as audacious as it is creative and generous then revolution awaits.
A Thursday column
Thursday, July 07, 2011
In Search of a Happy Juncture
In the moments after an election count, when the winning candidate is giddily bouncing on the balls of his or her feet, a look of chilly fear may sweep across their eyes.
It is possible they have remembered Enoch Powell’s adage that political lives “unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture end in failure”.
No political mammal wants to be remembered or (worse still) forgotten as a failure and being “cut off” does not sound very appealing.
Of the 60 Welsh AMs and 40 MPs, how many of them of them will suffer the ignominy of being ejected by their electors or eased out by a party irked that they have strayed onto the maverick side of an argument? Of those who do survive the periodic electoral culls, how many will reach an office of state which satisfies their ambition to bring a morsel of change to this wonky world?
MPs may be on the way to liberating circus animals, but politics remains a tiger-filled arena and how many will survive years of inter and inner-party battles with their idealism intact?
Britain has been able to provide ex-politicians with a soft landing thanks to the House of Lords but reforming zeal may remove this convenient and bouncy woolsack.
Politics does attract individuals of extraordinary self-belief who have a burning sense of vocation but is there a way to harness the talents of people who have brilliant skills and could make a fantastic contribution but do not want to devote the rest of their days to shouting from the green benches and stomping around Whitehall?
Former environment minister Jane Davidson had the idea of using some of the Assembly’s 20 regional list seats to bring in people with luminous talents so they could serve for a specific length of time without fighting a constituency. In a suction-packed 60-seat Assembly – where until recently one party leader himself had a top-up seat – this proposal was not going to catch fire.
However, it’s a notion whose time may come. Certainly, it was a glory of traditional Welsh rugby and golden era Olympics that the competitors had lives outside sport; the competition arguably glowed with more splendour when a jobbing engineer or doctor triumphed than when a professionally-tuned try-scoring machine achieves the same feat.
A political culture that welcomed the amateur might be a less cruel but more creative domain, and MPs who knew they had one term to make a difference might also enjoy a happier ending that would inspire others to compete for the chance to join the adventure of true public service.
A Thursday column
It is possible they have remembered Enoch Powell’s adage that political lives “unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture end in failure”.
No political mammal wants to be remembered or (worse still) forgotten as a failure and being “cut off” does not sound very appealing.
Of the 60 Welsh AMs and 40 MPs, how many of them of them will suffer the ignominy of being ejected by their electors or eased out by a party irked that they have strayed onto the maverick side of an argument? Of those who do survive the periodic electoral culls, how many will reach an office of state which satisfies their ambition to bring a morsel of change to this wonky world?
MPs may be on the way to liberating circus animals, but politics remains a tiger-filled arena and how many will survive years of inter and inner-party battles with their idealism intact?
Britain has been able to provide ex-politicians with a soft landing thanks to the House of Lords but reforming zeal may remove this convenient and bouncy woolsack.
Politics does attract individuals of extraordinary self-belief who have a burning sense of vocation but is there a way to harness the talents of people who have brilliant skills and could make a fantastic contribution but do not want to devote the rest of their days to shouting from the green benches and stomping around Whitehall?
Former environment minister Jane Davidson had the idea of using some of the Assembly’s 20 regional list seats to bring in people with luminous talents so they could serve for a specific length of time without fighting a constituency. In a suction-packed 60-seat Assembly – where until recently one party leader himself had a top-up seat – this proposal was not going to catch fire.
However, it’s a notion whose time may come. Certainly, it was a glory of traditional Welsh rugby and golden era Olympics that the competitors had lives outside sport; the competition arguably glowed with more splendour when a jobbing engineer or doctor triumphed than when a professionally-tuned try-scoring machine achieves the same feat.
A political culture that welcomed the amateur might be a less cruel but more creative domain, and MPs who knew they had one term to make a difference might also enjoy a happier ending that would inspire others to compete for the chance to join the adventure of true public service.
A Thursday column
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