Aug

10

Monty Python or Gordon Brown?

Posted by Little Miss Know it All

August 10, 2007 |

From the Times in the UK, a Brit’s view on the UK-US relationship.

Monty Python is a poor guide to diplomacy

The Brown Government risks alienating the US

Gerard Baker

Two famous Brits, unmistakable at home, but hitherto largely anonymous in America, have been making rather inauspicious debuts on the US stage this summer.

A bothersome ankle has so far prevented David Beckham from anything other than a few cameo performances at baseball stadiums and shopping malls. But it’s hard to resist the gathering suspicion that, whether he is healthy or not, Beckham’s arrival on the American scene may represent the single largest piece of hubristic hype since Icarus dismissively waved away the factor-45 sunblock.

The other unfamiliar Brit to land on this side of the Atlantic was Gordon Brown. To be fair, expectations were a little lower for the Prime Minister than they had been for LA Galaxy’s new midfielder, but he still managed to underperform them. Though he got the full Camp David treatment last week, and while he did his best to feign bonhomie, the temperature was about 20 degrees cooler between him and George Bush than it used to be when Tony Blair was around.

It was evidently an awkward meeting. One senior US official told me this week: “Brown does rather give the impression he was born in a suit and tie, doesn’t he?”

What Americans don’t fully grasp is that neither the footballer nor the Prime Minister could give two hoots really about how they are seen here in the US. It used to be that making it big in America was a prerequisite for real gains anywhere. From the Beatles to Burberry, British brands have sought a popularity in the US that would eclipse their success back home.

Not now. Beckham will make his fortune in any case, and if he merely becomes the latest famous professional soccer player to demonstrate that the game really will never catch on in America, he won’t lose much sleep.

For Mr Brown, it’s even better. Going down like a lead balloon in Washington carries great rewards back home. In political terms, and even in diplomatic circles, these days you want to go out of your way to be shunned by the White House. Mr Brown, of course, will never say that. Indeed, he is doing a quite brilliant job so far of projecting a studied ambivalence towards the US. Almost daily, his Government sends out conflicting signals. A stray speech by a minister here, the odd remark by someone there suggest that Mr Brown is looking to put distance between himself and Washington — all music to the ears of most British voters.

Then the Prime Minister or some senior member of his Government will insist nothing has changed and that Britain is still America’s biggest fan — to the relief and reassurance of people in Washington and those who still look rather fondly on America.

It looks so carefully orchestrated that one might call it the bat’s piss strategy. It is reminiscent of the marvellous Monty Python sketch from the 1970s that featured literary giants such as Wilde and Shaw pulling the leg of the Prince of Wales.

For those who don’t remember it, a brief plot summary. One of the wits would utter some devastating faux-literary insult such as, “Your Majesty is like a stream of bat’s piss.” One of the others would step in quickly to defuse the potentially treasonous moment, by putting some favourable gloss on the statement: “I, um, I merely meant Your Majesty, that you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around you is darkness.”

Mr Brown’s approach towards Mr Bush is similar. He will have some puffed-up nonentity, such as the risible Mark Malloch Brown, minister for global caring, utter a remark about the US that is the diplomatic equivalent of “Mr Bush, your presidency is like a dose of the clap”.

With the crowd-pleasing insult still hanging in the air, Mr Brown in full Monty Python mode will then quickly ring the White House and all its friends to repair the damage and say: “Yes, yes, but what he meant was that before you arrive is pleasure but after is a pain in the dong.”

There’s nothing terribly new or shocking about this. It’s an old diplomatic trick. But it poses problems for the new British Government. First, it is dishonest. It won’t do much for Mr Brown’s carefully manicured efforts at demonstrating how much more sincere and trustworthy he is than his predecessor if he is speaking with forked tongue about Britain’s most important foreign policy matters.

But there’s a bigger pitfall. It may be good for short-term political gain but some day Mr Brown is going to have to decide where he really wants Britain to be in the world.

No one in his right mind would seek political advantage by cosying up to Mr Bush, but if Mr Brown thinks he can just wait until America chooses a new president in 18 months’ time who will eagerly embrace the Brown-Miliband-Malloch Brown view of the world, he is making a dreadful mistake.

The Democratic contenders for the presidency — whether it is Barack Obama promising to invade Pakistan if he deems it necessary to win the War on Terror, or Hillary Clinton trying to sound like General Patton over Iran and other potential threats — have figured out that Americans may want a different president but they still don’t want to outsource foreign policy to the United Nations or the European Union.

Winning plaudits from the Labour Left and the Brussels bureaucracy by sniffing noisily at Bush foreign policy is easy politics but not a substitute for serious decision-making. We have already seen with the unfolding disaster in Basra, where Britain has for largely domestic political reasons opted out of a difficult military mission, that such decisions lead to disastrous foreign policy in practice.

Much more importantly, whether you like Mr Bush or not, you still have to choose whether, in the longer-term struggle for human freedom, you really think that distancing yourself from America is likely to produce the best results. Intriguingly, even those countries such as France and Germany that have been the most effective America-bashers in the past five years, have turned their backs on the strategy of late.

It looks clever when you stiff your unpopular friends in public and reassure them that you really like them in private. But after a while they begin to wonder whether you are really on their side at all.


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