The G20 summit and its long build-up – Gordon’s world tour – clarified for me what has shifted in the geo-political landscape since the election of Obama. So dazzling is the President’s smile and so impressive his oratory that it is easy to lose sight of the content: or, more accurately, the form. But in London it became clear.
The age of Obama is shaping up to be an age of multi-lateralism for the sake of it: grand summits and gatherings at which statesmen draw up communiques and statements of intent as if that was what made a difference. In today’s Sunday Telegraph, I call the new elite the “neo-confs” – those who have an ideological commitment to conferences, meetings, talks, and talks about talks. As Fraser warned immediately, there is not a cent of new money among the $1.1
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