The rise of the neo-confs

ken from glos

I call Obama Tony Blair mark 2.An airhead without substance who believes that just by announcing a policy it will happen.Oh dear

Alan Douglas

"The PM proved an adept party organiser and Barnum".

All Barnum and no Bailey ?

Three ring circus or three cup trick ?

Alan Douglas

Jenny

So it goes.

I can't remember which looney bin commentator wrote it this week, but someone said something about how Gordon Brown had missed a trick by not playing the multicultural card. 'Look at how many people from different cultures and different races we have here' - and we all know what happens then: more forelock tugging by the media. It's race and culture, innit?

This bozo knew damn well no-one believed an ounce of the drivel about money and a new world order and that the best thing to do was ramp up the pageantry element even more so that there was even less focus on the fiddled figures. No-one believes in the pantomime nonsense either but it's better than letting the press fill columns on figures that don't add up. The G20 would do better next time not to bother itself with anything economic at all. Just make sure everyone wears national costume, spout some platitudes about multiculti and the BBC will grovel even more than it did this time.

I couldn't stop laughing this morning as the crowds in Prague cheered Barack O'Teleprompter's comments on nuclear disarmament. He tells Iran and North Korea 'we are not a threat' and what do they do? Say, 'thanks for letting us know, let's get back to testing'.

The sanctimony on Sky News was unbelievable. William Hague, Adam Boulton and some silly woman all looking in awe of St Barack as he tells us he'll get rid of nuclear weapons just as the North Koreans realise they'll never have a better chance than O'Bunkum's presidency to turn themselves into a real threat.

Alan Douglas

"The PM proved an adept party organiser and Barnum".

All Barnum and no Bailey ?

Three ring circus or three cup trick ?

Alan Douglas

Publius

We've seen the whole shallow Obama thing already here with Blair and now Brown. All show. All emoting. No content.

Verity

What a load of old cobblers. Obama's auto-cue skills are very impressive, but have you, uh, tried ... uh ... to listen to him ... uh drone on and try to uh think on his uh feet?

Matthew D'Ancona must be the last person still clinging onto the Obama dream. I know Americans who were Obama groupies and are now disillusioned and sour about him. Already!

Also, I've noted before that when he smiles, Obama looks handsome and elegant. In repose, his face looks thuggish.

One termer.

porkbelly

Very edifying to watch these bureaucrats-in-chief fly their engorged retinues in huge aircraft, scoff three-star dinners and sleep them off in five-star hotels as they denounce "greed" and "arrogance".

All it will take is one sharp challenge from the likes of Iran to have these "world leaders" scurrying for their respective ratholes where they will plaintively demand that somebody - somewhere - does something.

On the other hand, Berlusconi is always good for a laugh.

Verity

PS - I do agree, though, that voters today are increasingly failing to to impressed by elite gatherings such as this. And increasingly perceive them as a waste of money, given that teleconferencing is always an option. Neo-confs!

adrian drummond

"The public bonhomie, the photo-calls, the red carpet: that is the substance. That is the point".

If that is the point Matthew, then it is your job in the media to report the reality and not just the wrapping. You guys are the conduit by which the public gets the message. I wish you (the media) would stop accepting hook, line and sinker all the spin, and passing it on to us in all its unadulterated form.

Don

Jenny,

Sarah Brown used the multicultural card in her partners dinner; the only possible reason that the thug, and convicted criminal, Naomi Campbell, was invited is that she is a high profile black person.

Verity

Jenny - Why mince words? Tell us what you really think. (I enjoyed every word of your post, and agree.)

Polly Peachum

Things have been heading the neo-conf way for a long time; in 2000, Naomi Klein (No Logo) describes Blair turning the G-8 summit into a 'basement rec room get-together', complete with music videos and karaoke.

The subsequent statements and communiques, though no more effective than any others, were sprinkled with the borrowed stardust of 'Cool Britannia', a triumph of style over substance that ultimately paved the way for this week's circus.

Chuck Unsworth

The duplicity, stupidity and mendacity of politicians during the past decade or so has had one real benefit - people have now learned never to take things at face value. So the instantaneous public unravelling of the opaque 'Communiqué' - which various dignitaries have spent many hours preparing and honing into shape - is very gratifying. I think we should be immensely grateful.

Nicholas

It is one of the consequences in the post-1997 shift from politicians who once represented us to politicians who consider themselves to be in charge of us. That and the rise in self-importance and egotism in government.

More booing and rotten eggs is the answer - alas now responded to by the paramilitary state police, also now protecting those who see themselves in charge rather than protecting us.

Paul M

What we all need to remember, when jamborees like the G20 roll into town, that is is reallly quite easy to spend someone else's money. It requires no intelligence, no courage, no hard decisions and no real leadership. A trillion here, a trillion there, we saved the world, and don't worry about the bill - that's our childrens' problem to deal with.

Spending your way out of problems -- often making those problems, in fact, worse -- is not a sign of character, expertise or courage: it is rather a sign of weakness, lack of imagination, and intellectual bankruptcy -- and, if we really want to be honest, it is proof of moral vacuity. An unemployed husband who buys a new luxury car with a bouncing cheque is not a responsible head of household; he is a half-wit.

What would have really been impressive as an outcome to the G20 meeting is a new "golden rule" agreement among the participating countries that no government, as of their 2010 budgets, would manage things so that the government sector in that country exceeded, say, 30% of its GDP. A recognition, in other words, that the only sane reaction to the enormous hole of debt we have all dug ourselves into is to lighten the dead weight of the pubic sector on the only people who can actually create wealth and thus jobs over the medium and long terms: private businesses.

Agreeing on a fundamental strategic shift from bloated state spending to careful promotion of true economic, scientific and cultural advancement would have been something worthy of at least some of the press coverage that the London non-event generated. But asking us to clap our hands and stamp our feet because someone knows how to turn on the currency printing presses? Recognising "leadership" in the writing of zillion-zeroed cheques with no thought about how to pay for it all? Not in my name, Gordon.

Verity

Chuck Unsworth: "The duplicity, stupidity and mendacity of politicians ...".

Not stupidity, Chuck. Not stupidity.

Verity

Nicholas 'More booing and rotten eggs is the answer - alas now responded to by the paramilitary state police, also now protecting those who see themselves in charge rather than protecting us.'

This is the entire reason for importing millions of people with a violent religious agenda from a Stone Age society. To allow the authorities to advance their own fiefdoms in the cause of "protecting" us from "militant extremists". I have always said that the Muslims were imported for this reason.

Rex Burr

Look at the positive side of this trend.
The Copenhagen climate conference latter this year will display all the bluff and bluster that we have come to expect but will in fact pass off without actually saddling the world with billions of dollars worth of unnecessary carbon reduction commitments.
Fossil fuels will be replaced by Fission in the short run and hopefully by Fusion in the longer run but in a paced and affordable manner for justifiable reasons not myth

Olaf Rye

I think that the difference between the Bush administration and the Obama administration is simple: Bush acted foolishly alone, now Obama is inviting the opinions of more fools. Nothing has been accomplished and the markets keep falling, the pound is losing value, unemployment rises, and the private sector is being torn apart. The banks are not the business sector, but the governments are in such thrall to them that they cannot contemplate a solution that does not involve bailing banks out and expanding their power. All we need to do is point at the ridiculous move against tax havens: they had nothing to do with this problem, and the attempt to regulate them is merely to raise more capital and make certain that businesses do not vote with their feet and go elsewhere as they burn our economy to the ground. Why not liberalise the banking system and allow solvent institutions to enter the banking business ? We could get rid of the rubbish banks through competition. This was too simple for the collective intelligence of the morons which are career politicians. God help us all ...

Steve.W

d'Ancona on Obama - "so impressive his oratory", really?

Smiley waffle bags has another fan?

Verity

Olaf Rye, a newcomer to this site with an urgent opinion ... Mr Bush did not act alone. He also had access to more intelligence than do you.

I will trust the strength and wisdom of a judgement by a two-time elected governor of a state - someone elected as chief executive TWICE of a huge state - than lefties weeing down their legs at the injustice of it all.

Mr Bush has experience in the knockabout of the oil industry and he was elected for two CONSECUTIVE terms as governor of Texas. The first ever. Thirty million Texans voted him in twice in succession. That's half the population that Labour lies to you is that of Britain.

Get a grip.

john miller

Impressive oratory? I think I may need a break. Am I alone in thinking that the G20 was the perfect illustration of the real problem the world faces?

There were calls for the banks and markets to be more "moral". There were calls for tighter regulation.

And at the same time that 20 leaders of the most powerful countries in the world were exhorting these values, they conspired together and issued a prospectus which, were they company directors, would have landed them in jail.

Verity

Chuck Unsworth writes: "The duplicity, stupidity and mendacity of politicians during the past decade...".

You're too fancy. "Malice" will do.

Amazing that so many legally brain dead voters thought Tony Blair was real. He came out as a fake in neon lights and with a brass band behind him, and so many morons thought he was fit to be a head of government of a highly advanced nation that had towed primitive nations, most of them in Africa, to advancement in our wake.

So many failed to spot Tony Blair and his wife as rubbish arrivistes (formerly CNDers, although the records have been airbrushed) taking over a squat at No 10. They brought in their fellow squatters - Jack Straw, Peter Mandelson, Alastair, Mo, all those other ones whose names I've never bothered to memorise because life is too short ... a lot of women in dreadfully cut, garish polyester clothes, with hips at least at least as fat as those of Cherie and possibly worse as 'Blair Babes'. How simply ghastly. Would any other country on earth have tolerated that photo shoot? Think of one country where that shot would have been OK. Malaysia? Australia? Argentina?

Why did the British press pretend to think this was normal, rather than a take over of our country? Why did they not spot it?

... Unless Alastair Campell forbade them, and they wiggled their tales and agreed.

The cowed British press is as culpable for the decline of Britain and the swamping of our country with non-producive "immigrants" and John Prescott's building over our country's wild sites in order to accommodate these uninivited guests as the perpetrators of these crimes against our beautiful country.

Also, the NHS gives preference to foreign doctors, who don't know our mores, facial expressions or speech patterns. What kind of cruelty is that to patients? Especially given that our own people who are newly qualified are forced to look overseas. I am astonished that the NHS is even deigning to train our own indigenous people who we know and love. I'm not Irish, but I would rather have an Irish doctor, who is from my culture attending me than some African.

Yet people who are suffering under their dictatorship voted left. The left intended to cut our roots away from us, and the voters have been intimidated into pretending they didn't notice the screaming of our roots as they were cut away.

cuffleyburgers

Verity old chap or chapess or whatever, I think you're a bit harsh on old olaf and how you could be quite so outspoken in praise of dubbya is extraordinary.

I agree that obama is likely to fall flat on his face, and I hope he won't "accomplish" for the US what blair did for Britain - ie to trash its institutions, constitution and economy and then sell the whole lot down the river to the belgians, but you can hardly argue tha dubbya was a resounding success either.

The best that could be said of him is that he was a puppet for a creepy military industrial conspiracy to take the tax payer for hundreds of billions.

Unlike his father who I thought was a pretty good president, certainly the US was still respected at the end of his period in office.

Olaf Rye

Verity, I do not subscribe to commonly held opinion that Bush was a complete idiot. He was nonetheless foolish: the invasion of Iraq was, to my mind, a good measure but his foolishness derived from his unwillingness to fund the occupation properly as his military staff had repeatedly insisted. This is very far from the position of Bush being clueless--I think that he was poorly advised on this matter.

The general European opinion was, however, utterly idiotic. A desire to leave Hussein in place to maintain the status quo was cynicism of an high order. It also was nothing but a stick to beat the US administration with--their solution was inhumane and immoral. So much for a commitment to liberty from our side of the Atlantic. Now, however, Europe lauds Obama because he cynically exploits their vanity by asking for their opinion. As we can see, collectively we have no solutions nor any ideas.

Rhoda Klapp

"The age of Obama is shaping up to be an age of multi-lateralism for the sake of it"

Funny, to me it's indistinguishable from trans-nationalism by the back door. Massive international agreements contrived to give powers to supra-national bodies without a democratic mandate. Or selling your country down the river, as it used to be known.

Wily Trout

The Daily Mail has a nice comparison with the real Bretton Woods meeting: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1167195/The-men-REALLY-saved-world-Bretton-Woods-left-legacy-G20-leaders-dream-of.html

Verity

Cuffleyburgers - President Bush the younger is a very clever and principled individual. He spent years in the oil industry and I can assure you, that is not an industry for the slow-witted or naive. He then became Governor of the great state of Texas - population around 40m, so bigger than a lot of countries. The Texans approved of his stewardship so much they voted him back in - the first Texas governor in history to be voted in for two consecutive terms.

He then went on to be a principled and intelligent president. Again, as president, he won a second term.

Olaf Rye, he may have been poorly advised on funding, but don't forget, this is a democracy and he had to get his proposals endorsed by the Congress. As ever, Congresspeople vote with an eagle eye on how their vote will go down with their electorates.

And there were no more incidents like the twin towers under his watch. The Muslim moonbats went after weaker administrations, like Tony Blair's for example, but stayed well away from Bush.

Olaf Rye

Verity, I think that you are right and it is injudicious to impute bad judgment entirely to the President for he has a complex job of balancing the often venal demands of Congree and Senate. The ultimate result of the give-and-take usually leaves most people dissatisfied. Nonetheless, I feel that there was a miscalculation regarding the military commitment required to sort Iraq out and that the enterprise cost more in the end than it should have.

Still, he did handle the Islamic extremist threat properly and I think that history will judge him favourably for the harsh treatment that he meted out. Again, I have no reservations about Guantonamo Bay: these people are illegal combatants and have no rights under the Geneva Convention and ought to be summarily executed.

But perhaps my main criticism of Bush was how he spoke conservative and expanded the power of the state. The US has a much bigger government than I think most conservatives would like to see. In fact, I was often shocked that the left did not support this expansion. After all, this was almost European !

Verity

Olaf Rye - I agree with you about the expansion of the state. But how much can one individual do? Everyone pushing their demands, and their constituents' demands and there's a war on and he's trying to contain terrorism at home and overseas, and fight those who were opposed to Guantanamo and senators pushing for new favours for their voters, President Calderon telling him he had to do more to cut demand for illegal drugs, blah blah blah. Three hundred million people and one president.

This is still a man who has a degree from Harvard and a degree from Yale. (One more degree than Al Gore.) And whose father was the head of the CIA and then President of the United States, and whose grandfather was a senator. His family has a long tradition of public service. (And no, your daddy can't buy a degree from Harvard or Yale for you by promising an endowment, otherwise Al Gore would have had a least a Masters.)

I'm in accord with you on Gitmo. Who cares? They're illegal combatants and have no rights.

No More Neo-confs

This "neo-conf" stuff is catching on:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/04/09/g-8-neo-confs-to-discuss-hunger-in-italian-castle.aspx