Double standards

Some prime ministers settle immediately on the international stage, others take their time to adjust to the nuances required in dealing with the assortment of democratically elected politicians, benign dictators and outright rogues who lead the world. David Cameron, so far, has struggled, achieving within three months something that took Blair six years: having his effigy burnt on the streets of a foreign capital, just weeks before a meeting with the president of that country. At least Mr Cameron and Pakistan’s President Zardari should be able to talk convivially about the cricket — unlike the last one, the current England vs Pakistan Test series has not been sullied by accusations of ball-tampering.

The Prime Minister was not wrong to suggest that Pakistan looks both ways on terrorism. No matter how much Pakistan’s government protests, the country’s intelligence agency, the ISI, has long been a law unto itself. It is widely suspected of having links with the Taleban and of aiding military insurgency in Afghanistan. It has been accused by India of involvement in the Mumbai bombings. Mr Cameron may well have been influenced by a report by an LSE academic last month which claimed to have found evidence of meetings between the ISI and the Taleban and concluded that ‘Pakistan appears to be playing a double game of astonishing magnitude’. President Zardari, for his part, can hardly defend the ISI: he complained about it bitterly in opposition and last year accused it of having created the Taleban in conjunction with the CIA.

What the Prime Minister misjudged was the time and place. He was unwise to bring up the subject during a trade mission to India; it is a subject which deserved a statesmanlike speech on another occasion. It is too big and important an issue to slip into conversation, to try to help British businessmen flog ball-bearings in Mumbai.