A pointless, grotesque and quite repulsive act of grandstanding

The agenda for the G8 is now clear: economic revival through better trading conditions; the elimination of corruption; the humbling of dictators; possibly even regime change. Yes, most of the G8’s member nations are in an almighty mess, and until they show the will to sort themselves out, you can forget their doing anything useful for the rest of humanity.

It is difficult, on the occasion of this utterly pointless, grotesquely expensive and quite repulsive act of grandstanding, to know for whom to feel more contempt: the Blairs, the Chiracs, the Schröders and the Berlusconis, or the silly little anti-capitalist plonkers parading themselves through Edinburgh rejoicing that they can chuck bricks through windows again. The former, aware of what the public wants to hear, have made all the right noises about aid to Africa. They won’t go beyond rhetoric, partly because of the overwhelming weight of their self-interest and partly because of African despots’ disgusting reluctance to pursue policies that will end famine. The latter, never having progressed beyond Karl Marx for Dummies, still think capitalism is the enemy of progress, whereas we all know it is the enemy of poverty. Looking at some of the unwashed, benefit-scrounging morons being carted off by the police during the anarchists’ beano in Edinburgh, one suspected that if the emaciated, fly-blown, Aids-ridden peasantry of Africa didn’t exist, these people would just be dying to invent them.

It is, though, the most fundamental mark of their naivety that they should expect any change out of the bunch of crooks, charlatans, self-obsessives and twerps gathering in Gleneagles this week. I exempt President Bush from such criticism, since he showed exactly the right spirit in advance of the meeting. He promised to double debt relief provided the brutes who control much of Africa stop sticking their bloodstained hands in the till; and he has ruled out any environmental measures, quite sensibly, because they would torpedo his superpower’s economy.