So what was that all about, then, Dave? Breakfast in Brussels yesterday with a Eurocrat glove-puppet called 'Rumpy-Pumpy' and then off to Berlin for tea with the 'Kaiserin' who at least had the good manners not to keep glancing at her watch and tapping her 'Rosa Klebb' squared-toed shoes. Even so, the whole script-written episode was about as exciting as oneof those afternoon soaps on the Telly. Could there have been a more blatant example of the obvious truth that Britain is a peripheral factor in Europe, a bit-part player of no particular interest to the leading players in this drama. Cameron came across as an Osric in a performance of Hamlet. Osric is the smooth but dimwitted, foppish courtier who arranges the deadly duel between the main protagonists in this tragic drama. Shakespeare put him in right towards the end to provide a brief moment of humour before the killing begins. Osric is, quite literally, inconsequential, just as Dave was yesterday.
If anyone doubted our complete lack of influence after yesterday they need their bumps felt! And yet still the dreamers, like Clegg & Co., drone on about how important it is that we sit at the top table and 'let our voice be heard'. Let me spell it out - THEY ARE JUST NOT INTERESTED! And anyway, another thing the Euro-dreamers still fail to understand is, THEY DON'T LIKE US! I can't say I blame them. This entire 'Euro-thingie' is, er, European, and we are not! Well, we are partly, but not wholely, because we have other interests. We are Atlanticists and we are global! That means that we are and always will be semi-detached. I just wish the politicians and the 'Ministry for Europeans' (that is the new name for what used to be the 'Ministry for Foreigners', otherwise known as the Foreign Office) would, to use the current jargon 'get real'. I haven't read the papers yet this morning but if they fail to throw rotten veg at Cameron for wasting his time and making this country look even more second-rate than it is, then they are failing (again) to do their job.
Yes, I don't know whether it is depressing, or funny. There was a splendid German official on the radio yesterday saying in very measured and Teutonic tones that he would take more kindly to Cameron's financial advice had he not bollixed up the UK economy. Beautiful!
I suspect that the media knew that Cameron was going to achieve the square root of nothing, but it was a slow news day, and they are in the business of ramping up emotions, rather than the actual reporting of reality.
Posted by: Whyaxye | Saturday, 19 November 2011 at 11:09
It seems to me that one of the important requirements for conducting a foreign policy is to know your limitations. 'Merkozy et al' have no interest in what the UK thinks and we have no inluence over the resut. He would have done better to stay at home.
Posted by: David Duff | Saturday, 19 November 2011 at 19:23