Home > The Magazine > Features

Saturday 5 July 2008

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Liz Anderson

Liz suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value reader offers and events

Click here for the latest Spectator Wine Offers

How Gordon sees the world

Mark Leonard

Wednesday, 23rd August 2006

Mark Leonard, an authority on Labour foreign policy with strong connections to the government, has spoken to those close to the Chancellor in search of Brown’s notoriously opaque views on international affairs. This is what he discovered

Tony Blair’s foreign policy in 1997 was defined in opposition to the legacy of the Tory years: moving from ‘little Englandism’ to ‘rules-based multilateralism’; from beef wars in Europe to ‘leading in Europe’; and from a narrow focus on the ‘special relationship’ to building a British ‘bridge’ between Europe and America. The war in Iraq left each of those pillars in disrepair, and Brown will have to define his own foreign policy as much against Blair as against Cameron. Brown is likely to rebalance all three of Blair’s strategies: restating the importance of British interests and British values; developing a more pragmatic policy of engagement with the European Union; and a more hard-headed brand of Atlanticism.

Instead of seeing Britain as a ‘bridge between Europe and America’, Brown will try to bridge the pursuit of the British national interest with a moral focus on the world’s poor. Above all, his intimates suggest that Brown will break with Blair’s adventurism: ‘Tony is a creature of fashion. His Europeanism is a fashion of his teen years, when getting into Europe was the ultimate symbol of modernity. More recently he was driven by the messianic interventionism of the neocons. Gordon’s approach to foreign policy will be more pragmatic, like his domestic politics. Very thoughtful and cautious.’ The yin and yang of Brown’s international outlook — morality and economic interests — will build on his impressive record at the Treasury. No Brown speech these days is complete without a litany of challenges that arise from globalisation, and his forthcoming spending review is organised into five international themes: globalisation; demographics; technology; global insecurity; and climate change. Brown will want a foreign policy that promotes open markets — engaging China, India and Russia — but at the same time putting pressure on them to obey international trade rules.

Previous page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 Next page

More articles from: Mark Leonard | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comment

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

A portrait of the artist as a tennis champion

Melissa Kite

Melissa Kite meets Martina Navratilova, nine times Wimbledon singles champion and now pioneer of ‘tennising’ — an artistic technique that creates Jackson Pollock-style patterns

Et tu, Scott? Bush’s press aide turns on his boss

James Forsyth

James Forsyth talks to Scott McClellan, former press secretary to the President, about his new book attacking the Bush administration, its methods and its deceits

The Law Lords are right to resist the government

Lord Lloyd of Berwick

Lord Lloyd of Berwick says that the government’s emergency legislation to overturn their lordships’ ruling on witness anonymity is part of a ‘gradual usurpation’ of our liberties

I was starstuck by David Cameron

Steven Berkoff

In the week of the Spectator Summer Party, Steven Berkoff recalls another of our celebrations at which he sought out the Tory leader and forgave his confusion of Brando and Dean

How to get stabbed: you, too, can be knifed in a public place

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle says that it helps to be aged between 14 and 30, white and male. Being drunk and argumentative speeds things along. And no public policy seems to dissuade those who do the stabbing

Very discreetly, Cameron is writing his first Queen’s Speech

Fraser Nelson

In spite of their commanding poll lead, the Tories are terrified of seeming complacent. But, as Fraser Nelson discloses, work is well advanced on a first-term plan for government in which education reform and a welfare revolution will be the centrepieces

EU leaders will never consult us again

Daniel Hannan

Daniel Hannan, who predicted the Irish ‘No’ vote in this magazine, now says that the EU will simply implement the Lisbon Treaty and never risk a referendum again

‘If there’s a vote of no confidence on 42 days, we’ll win’

Matthew d'Ancona

In her only print interview, Jacqui Smith tells Matthew d’Ancona that her proposal for the detention of terror suspects does not undermine Magna Carta, that she is ‘frustrated’ by Lord Goldsmith, and that the ‘West Midlands housewife’ is a better judge of the threat than MPs

‘Touch wood,’ Karzai said to me. You hear it all the time

Fraser Nelson

From the President downwards, all Afghans know that the peace in Helmand is precarious.Fraser Nelson reports from a shattered land of corruption and murky power where warlords wait to see if the West has what it takes to stay the course and thwart a horrific new conflict

Meet James Purnell: the best hope Labour has of avoiding disaster

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson says that the 38-year-old Work and Pensions Secretary is the best candidate to succeed Gordon Brown. Already surging ahead at his department, he has the gift of sounding like an ordinary human being — and he understands the Cameron Conservative party