Nice work

The taxpayer is being stung so this Lord can live in Admiralty House

Claudia Rosett and James Forsyth

Wednesday, 7th November 2007

Mark Malloch-Brown, the minister for Africa, Asia and the UN, was the most prestigious recruit to Gordon Brown’s ministry of all the talents. But this appointment might be about to come back and embarrass the Prime Minister with controversy brewing over the former UN deputy secretary-general’s taxpayer funded accommodation.

In his first (and so far only) big interview in the job, Malloch Brown set out to dismiss the idea that his appointment might cause problems with anyone but a few neocon crazies. He told the Daily Telegraph: ‘What I really hate is the effort to paint me as anti-American, but I am happy to be described as anti-neocon. If they see me as a villain, I will wear that as a badge of honour.’ He went on to boast that: ‘From Colin Powell to Condi Rice all the way through to Richard Holbrooke or Madeleine Albright, across that massive swath of American foreign policy, I would bet you a drink that you would find that I am their favourite multinationalist Brit.’ This, though, is not an opinion shared in Washington. An adviser to a 2008 presidential candidate warns that ‘the extremely negative reaction that he causes will last long after President Bush’s departure from office’.

The Telegraph interview also illustrated how loose a cannon Malloch Brown could become. His suggestion that Anglo–American relations would not be as close under Brown and that he was the Foreign Secretary’s ‘wise eminence’ led to Mr Miliband slapping him down fiercely in an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr, and the Prime Minister snorting in private that ‘Mr Malloch Brown does not speak for the government on relations with America’ (anger having temporarily stripped Malloch Brown of his peerage, it seems). Since this disastrous start, little has been heard from Lord Malloch-Brown. His blaming of the neocons for all criticism of him is also wearing thin. As one minister says, ‘He explains away all criticism as evidence of neocon briefing. It is a completely bloody circular argument.’

Is this just a fable of folly and grandeur? No. There are substantive policy issues where Malloch Brown could well end up causing Brown problems. The government has already been embarrassed by the revelation that when at the UN, Malloch Brown was enthusiastic about the concept of a European Union seat on the Security Council. And the ‘wise eminence’, with his extensive knowledge of the UN, is bound to want to insert himself into the debate over what language should be used in any further resolutions about Iran if the crisis escalates.

Brown defends Malloch Brown’s appointment to those committed to the special relationship by saying that all he really wanted was his expertise on Darfur. But this answer doesn’t stack up. Since taking on the job, Malloch Brown’s diplomacy in the region has been unexceptional.

What does all this tell us about the PM? First, that he gave too much away in his first attempt at top-level international negotiating. The problem for Brown is that the Malloch Brown situation is a quagmire. If the Prime Minister gets rid of the grandest recruit to his ministry of all the talents, his own judgment will be called into question. If he keeps him, Malloch Brown could end up causing the government major embarrassment. This intractable foreign policy problem is solely the Prime Minister’s creation. How Brown solves it will tell us a lot about him and his ability to rectify his own mistakes.

Claudia Rosett is journalist-in-residence with the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies and James Forsyth is online editor of The Spectator.

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carol scott

November 11th, 2007 12:18am Report this comment

Gordon Brown does not ever admit mistakes.

Maggie Black

November 13th, 2007 6:48pm Report this comment

David Lorraine is right. Malloch Brown is exceptional, and people who have worked with him at the UN have the greatest respect for him, even when they have not been personally well-served by his reforms and cost cutting decisions and have been bruised by some encounters. The idea that he would describe himself as doing God's work is preposterous, but I can well imagine that he would find a journalist only interested in a story about 'scandal and perks for top UN officials', when there are so many major problems in the world to address and so many difficulties in doing so, infuriating and a complete waste of his time. And now he's here, after 25 odd years in the interantional system, almost all of it at very high level. That's very good for us, and for others in the world. So he hasn't worked within the British political system before, and that is bound to mean some toes are trodden on and nuances missed. It is one of the anomalies of our House of Lords system that someone can be appointed to senior office in that way. Because he comes from outside the Westminster village, is it really necessary to write loaded sneers against him? It sounds as though insiders at Westminster, including journalists, are just determined to carp at someone who is not 'one of us', in a familiar phrase.

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