The G20 has been and gone so what does it all mean Gordon?
Apart from the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth, and periodic meetings of the Commonwealth there has not been such a gathering of heads of state and chief ministers with their entourages here in Britain before and even then not a gathering of the most powerful political leaders in the world. It was a fabulous occasion for the watcher of the powerful doing their thing.
It was not until 1999 that the leading economies in the world realised that they had to widen the membership of their meetings to include the leaders of the major developing countries. Since then there have been meetings in Berlin 1999, Montreal 2000, Ottawa 2001; Delhi 2002; Morelia Mexico 2003; Berlin 2004; Beijing 2005; Melbourne 2006, Cape Town 2007, San Paulo 2008, Washington 2008; and London this April. This was not a meeting concerned with climate change or third world poverty but saving the international capitalist banking system and preventing the impact of the downturn in trade from becoming prolonged and therefore adversely affecting too many individuals for too long. Obviously those who would like to see a revolutionary collapse of the capitalist system believing that the short term horror would be worthwhile because of the end result including their rise to power and wealth wanted the meeting to fail. Here in the UK the opposition political parties hoped the Prime Ministers would have many difficulties and the gathering would quickly be shown not to have achieved its objectives. The media hoped there would be lost of violent confrontations to film and report. There is a sick streak in British Culture which I find abhorrent.
Countries represented by the head of state in London were USA President Obama; China Hu Jintao President; Russia Demetri Medvedev President; Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva President; France Nicolas Sarkozy President; Germany Angela Merkel Chancellor; Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono Pressident; Mexico Felipe Calderon President; South Korea Lee Myung-bak President; Saudi Arabia King Addullagh; and South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe President
Countries represented by their Prime Ministers were United Kingdom of Great Britain Gordon Brown; Australia Kevin Rudd; Canada Stephen Harper; India Dr Mannohan Singh; Italy Silvio Berlusconi; Turkey Tayyip Erdogan; Spain Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero; Netherlands Dr Jan Peter Balkenende; and Japan Taro Aso;
Spain and the Netherlands are not members but came anyway and in addition the chairman of the African Development organisation Meles Zenawi Prime Minister of Ethiopia; Abhist Vejjajiva Prime of Thailand represented the South East Asia Nations; Manuel Barroso President of European Union European Commission and Mirek Topolanek Czech Prime Minister represented the European Council. Others invited Ban Ki-moon Secretary General of the United Nations; Robert Zoellick President of World Bank; Dominque Strauss-Kahn International Monetary Fund; Pascal Lamy Director General of World Trade Organisation and Mario Draghi Chairman of Financial Stability Forum
I have listed those attending in order to emphasise the importance of the gathering and that the assessment of the event should not be coloured by the ceremonial and the state hospitality which was also valuable in terms of the informal contacts between heads of state, especially any meetings involving President Obama. David Cameron, grudgingly and rather pathetically, in my opinion, admitted that he had been given the opportunity to meet a number of important political leaders, including half an hour with President Obama.
The delegates and their partners were invited to drinks at the Palce hosted by Queen Elizabeth and her husband and attended by Prince Charles and his wife. The Prime Minister also held dinner a dinner at Number 10 described as a working meeting with the partners having a separate meal at Number 11. There were similar informal gatherings involving the senior financial and foreign affairs Ministers and each leaders had their own functions with their Ambassadors.
Of course it is right to be concerned if the junketing was too lavish for the times but one has to be realistic in terms of what the leaders experience every day and the natural inclination of everyone to put on a good show when they welcome family admin friends to their home. We should never forget the underlying objective of persuading other countries to sell us their goods cheaply and buy ours at a premium.
An additional aspect of the gathering is the photo opportunity and media conference. In this respect Mr and Mrs Brown will have the collection to end all collections as Gordon alone or Gordon and his wife were at the door of number 10 to great each guest or guest and partner as they arrived for the evening dinner and meeting. Gordon was also there to welcome each delegate to the conference centre. There was also a group photo during the main day of formal meetings.
For Britain and Gordon in particular the highlight of both days was the media conference between Gordon and President Obama. The President demonstrated that he is not just someone who can deliver a big speech to a large audience but has a sharp mind and willingness to talk with a directness and at length about subject which he has prepared and studied. There appeared to be a genuine bond between him and the Prime Minister but with both mindful that they were two of twenty. He did not shirk from questions drawing attention that although the impact of the problem was being felt world wide, the cause was squarely in the USA and GB because of the failure for adequate financial monitoring. Separate visits by Mrs Obama to a cancer treatment centre and to the girls of a multiracial school, it may have been a girl’s school, reinforced her image as someone down to earth and genuinely concerned to do good wherever she can.
I now turn to the media and in fairness the British media which is divided between political journalists and news media. The political journalists understood the issues and reported fairly on what could be expected, depending upon the organisations they represented and the political leanings and political ambitions for the future of their owners and editors. My criticism of the news media is that they devoted too much attention to the demonstrations and the police management of the situation and failed to explain what was happening. Individual reports were significantly ignorant which suggests that those sending them to cover the demonstrations and the policing were calculating in what they hoped would happen and how they hoped the event would turn out. It was evident they would have been disappointed if everything had gone smoothly as what happened on the second day in central London and outside where the conference was being held.
Consistently the media failed to explain to viewers that the thousands of individuals who thronged around the Bank of England and attended a rally in Trafalgar Square, or the march and rally in Hyde Park the previous Saturday can be divided into distinct groups. First there were the organisers of action and protest interest groups from around the world who wanted to make the most of the opportunity to attract attention, funds and new recruits. It is my understanding that some forty thousand attended the Hyde Park Rally which is a good turnout going back to the early days of the CND movement in the early sixties but obviously not a match on the turn out for the anti Suez War rally half as century ago or the anti Iraq war rally earlier in this decade. The Peace rally with the message to scrap Trident in Trafalgar Square on Wednesday appeared to only attract hundreds rather than thousands of supporters or the curious. Organisers and supporters representing causes from across the world also gathered peacefully in the allotted area about half a mile from the conference centre yesterday but where they were able to show their banners and flags and shout out to the delegates as they arrived and department without disrupting the lives of everyone else.
Then there were those decided to use the occasion for some peaceful direct action. They advised the authorities of their attention to draw attention to the environmental issues and the need to change lifestyles and brought their tents for a twenty four hour sat down. The authorities allowed this to continue until the early hours until most of us were in bed and then required the demo to break up giving individuals the option of going quietly or being moved with force. The extent to which this went off peacefully depending on the training of participants and their awareness of how others and the operate.
There were also some genuine individuals concerned about the current situation who went along to protest and show their support and who were not attached to any particular group or who had a planned action agenda. They would have been affected by what happened in various ways depending upon their backgrounds, education and personalities. Some would have been radicalised as happens in all situations, especially if there was a sense of injustice or there anti authority inclinations were affected by some incident before them or involving them.
Then there were three groups about whom everyone else needs to have been aware of. All three seek to promote violent confrontation with the authorities. The first groups are those employed or contracted by the authorities to create incidents to enable the authorities to intervene. They are mainly used for intelligence and to identify known trouble makers, but they can adversely affect the behaviour of the crowd in general. The same issues concern the undercover media. The third group are the trained and violent fanatics although there was evidence that some of these individuals are also cowards because to the way attempted top hide their identities and to disappear once the trouble started. Such individuals need to be identified, apprehended, charged, convicted and imprisoned and then have their passports removed by their country of origin. They do harm to the very cause they are said to represent and they do harm to protest in democratic state for all those in other regimes who are tortured and killed because they dissent. I was also concerned at the presence of what can only be described as protest or event tourists, holding their mobile phones to tell family and friends, look at me. Fortunately the numbers were such and the approach of the police was such given the wider security issues that this aspect went well and augers well for the Olympics in less than three years time.
Now to the purpose of the meetings. The first objective was to consider collective action which would help reduce the length of economic down turn across the world and promote as speedy a recovery as possible. These tend to be measures which will improve upon existing arrangements but allow individual nations and their political leaders to respond to the situation of their own countries as the priority.. This is difficult. Britain, for example, has taken measures which have reduced the value of the pound against the Euro and against the dollar. This makes British produced goods and services cheaper to others and their goods dearer to us. 100grams of Italian salami has increased in cost to nearly £1.70 instead of £1 until it had to be reduced because people were not buying at the higher prices. I am prepared to pay £1.30 but not more. I like sliced smoked salmon the price of which has been caught up with the increases in the prices of fish. This is home produced so the price is stable but will have reduced considerably in Italy.
Then proclamations like British jobs for British workers and giving special help to manufacturers and service providers as well as bailing out banks rather than letting them end and other banks take up the custom is protectionism. The reality is that everyone finds ways to protect national and political interests, but has to do so within the agreed framework and rules. It is often a matter of degree than absolutes. It would have been to British advantage if other countries can in effect borrow money from other countries and from their own banks and investing institutions to cut taxes and to increase public expenditures given our own restrictions and limits on doing so beyond that already announced.
The problem in democratic run countries is that the present leaders are governed by their individual electoral time tables and their position in public opinion and the strength of opposition. It is in Britain’s interest and the Labour Government’s interests for the maximum investment to be made in stimulating economic growth as quickly a possible so that people will feel better and more confident and change their political opinions forgetting those responsible for the situation and anxious to continue with those who are seen to have resolved the position for the better. The likelihood in the UK is that all the good work will benefit the next administration and that this administration will be led by Mr Cameron, the Tory Party leader.
I was much impressed by the approach of Germany and France who wanted more attention given to measures to prevent the situation from happening again. One area where there appeared to be general agreement is the approach to tax havens and the traditional secrecy and refusal to divulge information to the regulatory financial authorities. However the emphasis appeared to be more on individuals than corporations. Another important area is that of control of the Hedge Funds who again have been able to cloak their activities in secrecy. A third area is the salaries of bankers and the payment of bonuses. A fourth is the monitoring and control of all financial institutions especially those engaged in speculative activity.
The main communiqué emphasised the amount of fund being made available to the International Monetary Fund and where the price if increasing the fund three fold from $250 billion to $750 billion has been to give emerging countries such as China and India greater voting rights. Additional millions have been allocated to ensure that all trading nations were allocated the credit without restrictive strings In addition to the main communiqué there are two appendices explaining aspects which are of particular concerns to the delegates.
The impact remains to be seen. The show moves on immediately to France and Strasbourg for the Nation summit. Ooh la la
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