Monday, November 23, 2009

High level diplomacy

My reaction, like, I suspect, that of most people listening to the announcement of the name of the new EU High Representative, was Who?

More surprising, in its way, was that the BBC did not do very much to enlighten us at that stage, other than to say that Baroness Ashton was already an EU Commissioner, &, sometime later, add in the fact that she had been the Leader of the House of Lords. I would have expected a bit more biographical information, at least.

Some of this could be explained by the fact that the journalists were, possibly, even more surprised (& certainly more shocked) than I was. A week earlier, for example, Bronwen Maddox had written that ‘The European composite leadership that will emerge … will be dull, and paralysed by its incompatible parts (nor will any be British, as it is panning out).’

So, after all their predictions, analysis, discussion of Blair, Miliband, even Mandelson, they were rather left with egg on their faces - they are so used to telling us what ministers are going to do.

Next day Philip Webster, The Times political editor (for now - his Labour contacts are going to decline in usefulness, according to Iain Dale), called Gordon Brown’s decision to support her ‘astonishing.’

Philip Collins – now a Times leader writer, once a Tony Blair speechwriter, noted that Lady Ashton ‘frankly, hasn’t been a great success as EU Commissioner.’ Which was another surprise since, by the time I read that, such reports as there had been on the radio were generally agreed that she had done a good job, both there & in the Lords. And doubly odd because in the (no by-line) information panel which formed part of The Times double page spread we were told that:


‘She has built a reputation in Brussels as a competent negotiator who achieves results. “She may not stop the traffic but she is a good bridge builder and that is her job,” said one diplomat. “She has made an extraordinary impression in her short time at the European Commission. The job is to build consensus among 27 leaders, and she is ideal for that.”’

By Saturday another double page spread revealed all, thanks to the combined efforts of Philip Webster, David Charter, Francis Elliot, Sam Coates, Suzy Jagger & Russell Jenkins.

For one thing ‘The poor relationship between Lord Mandelson and his successor as Trade Commissioner is an open secret at the top levels of the Government.’

And, as if that were not bad enough ‘She was recorded as “a communist sympathiser” [by MI5] on the ground that she shared a house with a member of the Communist Party’ & had once worked for CND. Good heavens, she would never have got past first base if she had applied for a job in the home civil service, never mind the Foreign Office.

No wonder there was a hint of sulphur in the air.

Further evidence of her suspicious background came from the reporter dispatched to deepest Lancashire, to the village of Up Holland, where the baroness grew up. Nobody (except the local rector) who spoke to the reporter could remember her. Even worse, Lady Ashton did not stay at her grammar school for nice safe A levels in arts subjects but went instead to the Wigan & District Mining & Technical College to study sociology, business & law.

There are also lots of revelations about who said what in various private meetings between EU leaders; for example when, finally, Mr Brown said ‘It’s Ashton’, Mr Berlusconi replied ‘Je suis d’accord’ – well French always was the language of diplomacy.

We can but hope for the best. It will be interesting to see what does happen, now that we have women leading the foreign policy of both the US & the EU.




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