Change They Could Never Believe In

Sunday’s Presidential Election in Ukraine provides another of those salutary reminders that history so rarely progresses in an irreversible, linear fashion.

Amongst the chaos, the disappointment, and the humour of Ukraine’s cathartic Presidential election, in which Victor Yanukovych has all but triumphed, three things stand out. Firstly, Ukraine’s government has become a victim of both the financial crisis and its own unmanageable bureaucracy and will limp back to the clan-based politics that pre-dated the Orange Revolution and survived the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Second, the country will return to being a vassal state of Russia, with all the advantages and disadvantages that will bring. Thirdly, the political career of one of Europe’s most gifted politicians is nearing a tragic end.

‘Absolutely Ungovernable’

In 2004, thousands of people took to the streets of Kiev to protest against corruption, vote-rigging and economic underdevelopment, launching the Yuschenko-Tymoshenko coalition. As so often, the combination of sacrifice and optimism proved contagious – observers talked of a wave of freedom that had spread from Georgia the previous year.

Today, the best that could be said of Ukraine is that the votes are no longer rigged. No one seems better off for it, however. The Orange Revolution brought down a government, but it did not provide a new one. Constitutional reforms increased the role of the regions and power of Parliament (and by extension, the Prime Minister), as well as delivering the current electoral fraud protections that have led international observers to describe this election as ‘impressive.’

The fall-out between the ultimately victorious President Victor Yuschenko and Yulia Tymoshenko (who after being dismissed as Prime Minister led her own coalition to electoral success) has dominated politics in recent years. Last November, when Mr Yuschenko vetoed her anti-flu appropriations, Mrs. Tymoshenko fumed that Ukraine had become ‘absolutely ungovernable’ and challenged her opponents to try governing;

“If someone else comes along who can deal with country’s financial and flu crises simultaneously. I don’t think either Yushchenko or Yanukovych want the job,”

Mr Yuschenko has been criticised for wiping the slate clean of former-president Leonid Kuchma’s cronyism (he refused to call for a re-run of the 2004 election to protect his former-PM, Mr Yanukovych) and failing to replace the system with effective institutions.

Ukraine’s regions also present a political headache. The South and East are staunchly Russian in outlook, as in language and culture. Political polarisation reinforces the provinces as centrifugal forces.

Nonetheless, the real crisis in Ukraine is financial. The country is bankrupt, dependent on an unusually large loan of $16bn from the IMF. Last October, the latest $3.8bn draw-down was rejected as a result of Ukraine’s failure to enact a tough budget (cutting the deficit from 10 to 3-4% of GDP).

Closing down another Cold War front

The second great failure of Mr Yuschenko’s tenure as President was in relations with Russia. There have been three gas crises in the past five years, with supply having been cut twice, and invariably in the harsh winters.

Part of the problem has been Vladimir Putin’s outright hostility to the Orange Revolution, and Gazprom’s tendency to summarily increase prices. But the fact of Ukraine’s dependency and its strategic importance for a quarter of Russian supplies to the EU makes it a desirable target for Russia. Last year, Mrs. Tymoshenko was forced to go begging to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to renegotiate the terms of their contract. From a position of disastrous weakness, the cost to Ukraine continues to rise, and can sometimes exceed $1bn per month.

The election of Mr Yanukovych, who will pursue a far less antagonistic foreign policy (the Orange leaders’ enthusiasm for NATO infuriated Russia), is likely to mean a better deal for Ukrainians. If the Russians do seriously favour Mr Yanukovych, they will have to indulge him. Improving Ukraine’s finances will be imperative to the effectiveness of his government.

Mercurial Tymoshenko

Despite the gap being only 3% between the two presidential candidates, Mrs Tymoshenko’s defeat has been comprehensive. Although she commanded considerable influence, her enemies are equally strong and in a state in which patronage plays as big a role as it does in Ukraine, she is well and truly cast into the wilderness. Moreover, she is caught between the reality of the situation and the principles she espoused four years ago. To protest when the results of the election have been lauded as fair would be unthinkable. Finally, the many compromises made necessary by her role as Prime Minister may make her unpalatable to either Russia or the West when it comes to other political stages, No longer, for her, a role in international politics.

All of which I regard as a considerable tragedy. Mrs Tymoshenko is no angel, and has few lasting achievements to her name, but she was a politician of considerable ability, who dominated Ukrainian politics from a not overly strong position.

She began her career holding the energy portfolio under President Kuchma and Prime Minister (at the time) Yuschenko, where she was regarded as a fighter of corruption (though accusations of personal enrichment and corruption, which led to a short jail-sentence have followed her personally). Adroitly building up a support base, she provided the crucial bulwark to leverage Mr Yuschenko into the Presidency in 2004, rallying protestors in Kiev’s Independence Square. Her alliance was short-lived, however, and the fluidity and dissonance of Ukrainian politics saw her ousted as Prime Minister after eight months.

During this period Mrs Tymoshenko endeavoured to be strikingly anti-Russian, refusing to visit her neighbour for most of her premiership, and culminating in early 2007 in an article for Foreign Affairs in which she called for the containment of a revived and expansionist Russia.

Later that year elections strengthened her parliamentary bloc, allowing her to return to the premiership by the slimmest of margins. She began to soften her criticism of Russia, keeping silent during the Georgian war, and compromising in the gas disputes, when the implication was clear, that Ukraine might be next. Her concern about the Russian Question did not cease, however, and in late-2008 she penned an article for The Economist’s The World in 2009 in which she called for an institutional arrangement to maintain dialogue between Russia and the West;

In 2009 the European Union must acknowledge the task of ensuring that the ongoing changes taking place in the lands between the EU and Russia proceed in an orderly, peaceful—and, most important—mutually beneficial fashion. The aim is clear: Russia and Ukraine on the road to becoming two prosperous and friendly neighbours in the manner of today’s France and Germany.

Ironically, 2009 was an annus horribilis for Mrs Tymoshenko, a perfect storm that might have brought down any other government. Ukraine was dashed against the rocks of economic crises, a President vainly electioneering for his political life blocked reform, and the possibility of EU accession in the near future died a death as enlargement fatigue gave way to desperate introspection in light of the Lisbon Treaty.

Of course, Mrs Tymoshenko was not innocent of politics. A quote in the New York Times today gives a good indication of the negative picture she painted of herself;

“She is that psychological type of person who wants to fight and not do anything else,” said Ms. Chetvertnova, 45. “A government should work and not just seek out enemies.”

But the fact remains that from an unpopular government Mrs Tymoshenko ran Mr Yanukovych close. As a battler, she puts Gordon Brown to shame. The hope remains that she exits politics for the time being with dignity and far-sighted patriotism, not recalcitrance. The dawn of 2010 marks dark days, with freedom’s unstoppable march slipping backwards, with Russia ascendant and with government embattled.

It is almost enough to make one balk at liberal values, but on the contrary, it is also the perfect time to bear them in mind. If Mrs Tymoshenko ensures that democracy is not dragged into question, she will do her country a service and perhaps that there is a day when the West will, as the Gideon Rachman says splendidly, right a historical wrong and enclose struggling democracies within its protective embrace.

Allez les Noirs

Saracens 28 Toulon 9

In lieu of Toulon’s superior record in the Amlin Challenge Cup and perhaps even more significantly after losing their first two games of the year, victory was imperative for Saracens in Thursday’s European Cup game. To hope for a four-try bonus point seemed optimistic, and so it proved, but the Men in Black nonetheless produced a second half to blow the cobwebs away, denied the Frenchmen a bonus point and set up a final pool game with everything to play for.

Toulon had clearly travelled with every intention of contesting the match, giving starts to Jonny Wilkinson, Worcester-bound full-back Luke Rooney and Joe van Niekeerk. The biggest cheer from the crowd came for Saracens legend Kris Chesney. Saracens too played a first-choice team that is becoming increasingly discernible over the management’s rotation system. Schalk Brits started, Steve Borthwick was captain, Marshall and Hougaard at the pivot, Barritt and Ratavou in the centres and Alex Goode at full-back. Perhaps the only obvious absences were Wikus van Heerden, rested, and Hugh Vyvyan, held back for impact.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, the quality of the two sides cancelled each other out for much of the first half. Wilkinson dropped an early goal and kicked mostly with trademark precision – knocking over two penalties but missing a third. for the most part, however, the cold weather and wet conditions hampered a game which included the obligatory spell of aimless kicking.  Brits in particular dopped a few catches – unremarkable enough if not for the fact that they will limit his chances of being picked at full-back this season.

In the end, there were only three moments of real quality in the first half. First came Justin Marshall’s drop goal from the base of a maul – some feat given the space most fly-halves ask for. Second came Brad Barritt’s shuddering tackle on Luke Rooney after a kick and chase was unwisely played by Toulon. Wilkinson at least made the third for Toulon, with a neat grubber into space that he then collected and offloaded.

Toulon made nothing of it, but if the English fly-half could repeat it in a months time, England would be grateful. It was Saracens who came out slightly on top, with an edge in the scrum that won them several penalties. Hougaard kicked faultlessly and his four penalties were the difference at half time.

The second half saw Saracens extend their grip and when Hougaard took them to twelve points ahead they began to play a more expansive game. For most of their best moments Goode or Brits was present, albeit with the centres also drawing defenders, but the combination of resolute defending from Toulon and Sarries’ flat backline meant there were few breaks. In the end it was only when the two Toulonnaise flankers had been sent to the sin bin for cynically slowing the ball that Saracens could muster a forward’s try, Justin Melck touching down.

That was about all Saracens could muster, and the last ten minutes belonged to Toulon as the substitution of Goode and Brits and an injury to Barritt sapped the energy the game was crying out for. The significance of the game was that it put Saracens just one point behind Toulon with equal tries, so that if Toulon win without a bonus point or do worse, Saracens can squeak through. That justified Venter’s summation that their mission had been suitably accomplished, but Saracens will have to return to winning ways or get the backs playing better rugby if they are to go the distance.

The Misanthrope

“People would like a turd if they paid £50 and dressed up to go and see it.”

Adapting old plays requires some talent but re-writing them even more particular skill. Martin Crimp, whose name is hardly the most noted on the billboards of this latest interpretation of Monsieur de Moliere’s Misanthrope, deserves a good deal of the credit.

The verse is lilting and easy, not without rhythm but conversational. The play is also strikingly funny, if not a little vicious. There are digs at celebrity, compassionate Conservatism and even the audience – all very brave, if a little smug. Indeed, the main protagonist – a playwright called Alceste – is likeable in a smug sort of way. Think a more passionate Bernard Black from Black Books and you have an idea.

Alceste has an aversion to hypocrisy, but his refusal to play the rules of the game looks positively irrational, hence the title. His girlfriend, by contrast, is everybody’s girlfriend. For the purposes of her career, Jennifer has no qualms about flattering a critic on his script-writing ability.

This makes for a tense relationship, albeit one which is overly cathartic for the play’s purposes. Much though Damien Lewis and Keira Knightley – whose American accent is largely unfaultable – bring their characters to life, they struggle to make them likeable when there is so little chance of redemption.

But the play will, I’m sure, be well thought-of. Crimp has dragged the story out of the baroque into the post-modern, ruleless society, if indeed there is any difference. The court is replicated as the Hollywood circus, complete with former teachers, agents, critics and journalists – all ultimately out for themselves and quick to cash in their stock in Jennifer. Jennifer herself is strikingly young for so much fame, trying not to be a commodity, while throughout the play Knightley is decked out in Chanel (coincidence?).

The audience, very many of whom were there to see a real film star, may very well have been struck by the irony of it all, but then again, we’re getting used to the party continuing in spite of a crash. just maybe this old play will show us a watershed after the past year’s revulsion. If we’re not careful, we’ll all be misanthropes soon.

British Democracy – An Experiment in Statecraft

Britain Since 1918; The Strange Career of British Democracy by David Marquand (2009)

Given the current fashion for social histories amid the very able talents of David Kynaston, Peter Hennessy and Dominic Sandbrook, it’s refreshing to have an exclusively political history of Britain in the Twentieth Century. And if it had to be written by a politician, the historically literate and academically trained David Marquand is almost certainly the one whose book I would choose. The great advantage of Marquand’s book is that he has a central premise, which makes for a provocative read. Successive British governments since 1918, says Marquand, have had to cope with the extension of the franchise and turbulent economics, but have also sought to govern in line with four ‘traditions,’ by which he means something less than ideologies, but something more than styles.

Whig Imperialists start with the principle of Parliamentary Sovereignty and conceive of Britain as having a distinctive role in the world. They can be classically liberal, but in the sense of C20th Britain, they practised Baldwinian inclusivity after the pre-war Prime Minister who balanced trade unionism against successive balance of payments crises and the Gold Standard suspension. Marquand’s opening chapters, giving Edmund Burke as the Whig par exemplis give credence to this grouping, but there is also a tendency to expand it to the point of collapse. The Attlee government may have continued a Churchillian whiggism in international affairs, but at home to describe them as whiggish suggests to me that the term means little more than compromising.

Democratic Collectivism plays foil to whiggism’s incremental progress by providing an incentive and a justification (arguing that the State can embody the people) to centralise the British State. One moment stands out in particular as an exemplar of this tendency of Britain’s; Attlee government’s decision to make the newly-created NHS a central body, rather than placing hospitals under the control of local authorities – plausibly a mistake. Tory Nationalism is epitomised by Thatcher, a conservative who saw the country as being in such a weak position that radical reform was necessary. By strange coincidence, almost all Conservative Statesmen during the period (many of whom Marquand admires) are Whigs by instinct, rather than Tories. Democratic Republicanism plays perhaps the weakest role over the period. Few governments have felt the inclination to devolve power until New Labour. Indeed, Labour’s token receptiveness to devolution in the 1970s was countermanded by their deliberate undermining of the referenda in Wales and Scotland.

By defining history as such, Marquand confirms himself as a Whig. People are important in whig history, and indeed, Marquand frequently describes changes in strategies by the rise and fall of different actors (Cripps’ move to the Treasury in 1947 is a typical example). But actors are almost exclusively the representatives of themes (e.g. Enoch Powell and the growing Tory rebellion in the 1970s and 1980s). That may be appealing or controversial by turn, but an example of how it can come unstuck is provided by his account of the Blair government. Blair, Marquand says, embodied all four traditions. But he was also driven by a restless pursuit of novelty. It may be that Marquand was unable to pigeonhole one of the most difficult of politicians, rather than having a problem with his definitions, but the fact remains that his traditions don’t seem suited to the last ten years.

As history, Marquand’s book represents a great effort. He is noticeably more confident on the post-war period up until the end of the ‘Consensus’, during which time he was an MP. Thatcher’s and Blair’s governments are taken at a relative canter but there are good insights, nonetheless. One that interested me but was singularly ill-followed up was the idea of Blair’s government as a court.

Politics by Other Means

Perhaps the test that Marquand would prefer his book to be measured by is what is says about us today. In fact, he doesn’t try to avoid conclusions. The paperback edition has an epilogue describing the political crises of 2009 and the desire of Brown and Cameron to return to business as usual (Whiggism?). Whether Britain is still governed by traditions is difficult to quantify, however. In some senses Blair’s public service reforms are a form of inclusivity but his apparently directionless radicalism has given way to imagination-free politics – perhaps temporarily, or perhaps for considerably longer.

Marquand himself is of the opinion that now is the time of the democratic republican, or rather, of the people. It’s an easy statement to make, without being quite clear what it means. What is clear is that constitutional reform has unleashed new energies. Of the traditions, Tory Nationalism in the form of opposition to Europe has been the best defined in recent years. Brown’s internationalism, recently extended to include a meeting on terrorism is unlikely to last without statesmen of stature. Whiggism seems both unnecessarily cautious and insufficient, while collectivism has been discredited. That is almost certainly why republicanism seems so popular, but governments are unlikely to be keen on something with such a limited tradition.

Seize the Day @ The Tricycle

Few actors in Casualty go on to great things, but Kwame Kwei-Armah is an exception. A perceptive observer of the black-British community and its heritage, he has been ploughing a rich furrow for long enough to be invited onto Andrew Marr’s Start the Week to discuss his newest, sixth play.

Patently written in the shadow of Barack Obama’s election as President of the United States, you might imagine the story of a black-British London Mayoral Candidate to be an uplifting one, capturing the spirit of ‘yes we can,’ if not the exact soundbite.

Seize the Day is a strange beast, however, and a long way from the Dizzee Rascal interpretation of our epoch (see below). The plot is informed by the twin themes of community and service. Perhaps the most informative fact of Barack Obama’s story was that the two combined – in the way African-Americans see themselves and responded to the opportunity to elect one of their own, and in the specific role of community organiser that Obama performed in Chicago before going to Law School.

For Kwei-Armah, however, the black British community, though it palpably exists, is not served by politics. In the battle between the two, the former excludes the latter – an outcome we can only guess the effect of on the watching David Lammy MP. The metropolitan caucus of Ethnic Minority Leaders in Britain fight amongst themselves for their own constituencies, fighting a PR battle against those they supposedly represent. When the play’s hero writes an article (against his instincts) castigating the black community for a lack of discipline, he forfeits the trust of a young boy who becomes his moral compass.

Though most characters are granted a form of redemption through one sub-plot or another, it’s a striking conclusion. why resist the temptation to enact the ideal? Is it because Kwei-Armah feels that the black community is not ready for a black mayor? The playwright certainly has as difficult a job as his protagonist when it comes to communicating social remedies, but at least he makes the effort.



Copenhagen – Among the Rubble, Something Extraordinary

The results of Copenhagen are more substantial than you might think

It seems as though the Copenhagen Accord, barely baptised, has already been dragged below the waves – a precursor to civilisation’s own destruction. Almost no-one has been prepared to praise the outcome of the two-week summit, and least of all, the politicians who contributed to it. I for one (and it seems I am pretty lonely), am confused by this. I can appreciate the frustration of those who were desperate to broker a deal (and particularly those with an election next year), but the political segment of the conference seemed like a great success to me.

From where I was watching, Copenhagen moves the world a good deal closer to a consensus and answers many of the more contentious questions about how the balance of responsibility will be adopted.

Mid-week, we were told that the key to a deal was financial support for developing countries – to help adapt to the inevitable environmental changes and to develop low-carbon economies. $100bn was the price put on Copenhagen and as a Western European whip-round could produce less than 10% of that figure all looked lost in a sea of hypocrisy and recriminations.

Then Hilary Clinton brought good news. In the words of John F. Kennedy, America would ‘pay any price, bear any burden’ to make the deal stick.

Unfortunately, Obama then went and put his proverbial foot in it. Transparency of emissions was essential, and inspections to that end could not be avoided. Of course, he was speaking to an important constituency that would not impose on America what other countries could get away with – the force that wrecked Kyoto over a decade ago. However, he infuriated China and in return was humiliated to find a lowly official was to meet him in place of the Chinese Premier.

American spokesmen could hardly conceal their delight at the way Obama marched into a meeting demanding to speak to President Wen – ‘well, he was on time’ – one said. Nonetheless, as a result, the projected cap on carbon emissions – 80% by 2050 – was left out of the Accord.

After that example of going one step forward only to jump back two, the summit collapsed into chaos. The cause was partially procedural. For a week and a half technical discussions had been conducted, only for a completely different class of politicians to arrive and tear up what had been agreed, until more drafts were floating in the Danish capital than snowflakes. The high-level diplomacy collapsed when the Prime Minister of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, leapt at his chance to push his motion reducing what had been agreed as the highest safe rise in the climate from two to one-and-a-half degrees Celsius.

Obiter dicta, I would love to hear what the left think of Hugo Chavez, who tried to play his disreputable part in ruining such an important cause.

Given the circumstances, it was remarkable that any agreement was made. But there was an agreement. The rich world has agreed that it will have to fork out for the process, and decided the benefits outweigh the costs. Tacitly, the numbers that a successful deal will ultimately be measured against have been floated and have even been the subject of approximate consensus. In a year’s time the world will return to the matter at hand. By then, the UN should have adopted a more sensible procedure. The opponents of a deal have ousted themselves, too late to achieve recognition (making China’s diplomacy look like statecraft) – and early enough to be pressured into falling into line.

The prospects for success are much brighter than you have been led to believe. As we desperately need reminding, few great political achievements have been concluded in so short a space of time – least of all those (like the abolition of slavery) that are comparable with this. Politicians (especially Barack ‘last President to reform health care’ Obama) should restrain from promising the world, even if they can’t help it.

A Classic New Labour Commotion

In many ways, it is a classic New Labour public relations cock up – raised expectations, simplistic targets and demands for immediate success. Most critics will tell you that New Labour’s multi-nationalism has been a disaster. To those on the left, it simply ignored the UN in 2003. To those on the right, Labour has caved in at almost every European Summit it has attended.

The truth is much more complicated. New Labour has deployed a similar strategy in international affairs on more than one occasion, and the Copenhagen Summit bears a striking resemblance to the G8 Summit held in the middle of the Make Poverty History campaign in 2005.

On both occasions, Britain led the world on the terms of debate. In 2005; the Commission for Africa, of whose report 50/90 recommendations were implemented. In 2009; the Stern Report. On both occasions Labour stirred up national sentiment, then took a back seat to the more trustworthy celebrities and notables who we were to accept a hectoring from in place of the politicians.

As a force in multinational negotiations, it has been unquestionably significant. But the flip side is that it almost always results in the government achieving less than was promised. No one is convinced that by joining ‘the Wave’ Peter Mandelson and Ed Miliband are ordinary folk. They were disappointed that 2005 did not see a deal on agricultural subsidies and in 2009 if there is no legally-binding emissions target there is nothing to talk about. Perhaps the one bright point politically is that they have out-manoeuvred the formerly ‘green’ Conservative opposition.

But behind the scenes, Labour politicians have been able to punch above their weight as a result of their moral authority and technical ability. Copenhagen is an exceptional example.

Between them, Brown and Miliband were like a combination of the almost entirely incompatible Gladstone and Disraeli and the 1870s. Miliband was roused from the point of collapse to harangue the Sudanese Premier for his comparison of the Summit to the Holocaust, while Brown laid out the conditions of a deal and was elected to preside over the summit in place of the flaking Danish PM, Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

That combination held what was left of the Copenhagen Summit together. Next year, personnel could make a similar difference either way.

Obama’s Surge – A Tidy Campaign?

Barack Obama came to office convinced that the war in Afghanistan was a right one, never mind that it was a useful juxtaposition against Iraq and charges of being labelled a woolly liberal. Eleven months into his term, the situation is much the same, demanding a major re-evaluation. An article in this Saturday’s New York Times gives an insightful overview into the process by which Obama has come to make his vaunted statement on Afghan policy.

Obama has rightly decided that the time has come to start swimming, but the tide is very much against him. A difficult election returned President Karzai to power but his image has been tarnished by fraud and authoritarianism. The Taliban has regained a foothold – leading officials to fear for the sovereignty of Karzai’s government. Pakistan has apparently become less secure – evoking a long-running fear of a failed, nuclear state.

Winning the Battle for Public Opinion

On 2 December, Obama made his speech on Afghanistan at West Point Military Academy. The Economist in particular, was disappointed, stating in an editorial that;

this speech—perhaps the worst “big” one of his presidency—failed to present a persuasive case to America’s foes that he has the stamina to tackle them and, in his deceptively simple-sounding little phrase, to “finish the job”.

Read back, the speech is still the masterpiece of clarity and suasion that you would expect from Obama. America’s strategy was elucidated in three main points – a surge in troops starting in the middle of next year, a greater civilian effort, and new efforts to synthesise their approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

None of these are particularly new. In March Obama ordered more troops to the country, which the military failed to carry out conclusively. Civilian projects have long been debated, and will be fuelled by Hilary Clinton’s ambition for the State Department. And the Obama administration gave a clear sign of intent when it appointed Richard Holbrooke the Ambassador for AfPak.

More to the point, no details of the policies formed part of Barack Obama’s speech. What Obama does have on his side, is political goodwill. First, NATO has acceded to Obama’s request for support with a healthy supply of reinforcements.

Second, the Republican Party has coalesced around this ‘surge’, partly as a matter of principle, and partly as a reflection of Bush’s surge in Iraq (though Lord knows, they owe Obama nothing for his opposition to a policy which has made his gradual withdrawal from that theatre relatively painless).

Thirdly, the balance inside the administration is in favour of putting more troops in. Clinton, Robert Gates, and most of the Generals have come onside, though Joe Biden has been campaigning fanatically against the surge and Nancy Pelosi is known to be unimpressed.

Perhaps this is a reflection of Obama’s style of government. He has allowed the debate to go on for three months, never obviously siding with a position, except to exclude an immediate and unilateral withdrawal. Everyone has had their say, and ultimately, has been brought on board.

Winning the War – What Next for the Jihadi’s?

A political victory will be temporary, however, if the situation does not improve in the coming months. The great concern is Obama’s commitment. He used his speech to talk about values, but also America’s economy. When first presented with the plans for a surge (Obama has used the words in private, apparently) by General McCrystal, his response was that they needed to get troops in sooner, and out sooner still – before the next US Presidential elections, effectively.

The weight that has been put on Karzai has been focussed on getting a schedule for Afghan troops to take over security. Quite unlike Iraq, which now has a thriving party system, Afghanistan has a very limited political culture. Furthermore, it is unclear where the Taliban will fit into any future political system. The surge is not meant to smash them once and for all, but weaken them for a time. Perhaps it will be long enough to get some kind of system in place to isolate Al-Qaeda, but the question is how?

Without some sort of devolution agenda that can legitimise the warlord system, the prospects for the rule of law in Afghanistan look slim. The alternative is almost certainly a far more involved war, although not necessarily one that America will be involved in. Notice, also, how little has been said about Pakistan. If there is a strategy for the region, it is still vague.

Obama will have many things on his mind this Christmas. The economy, health care, the environment and Iran will all rank above Afghanistan, at least in terms of immediacy. The President may have hoped to buy some breathing space from his surge, but he has front-loaded his dice. America and Afghanistan will both suffer if this policy does not allow something to flourish in the AfPak Winter.

Saracens 15 Sale Sharks 13

Sale have learnt a thing or two about cancelled matches in the past week, after the rather ungracious visit of Wasps to Edgeley Park. Saracens didn’t go so far as to give up on the performance, but they did rein it in to the point where very little spectacle was involved. The weather made that inevitable, and in the end Saracens’ kicking game was vindicated by the win.  Though the margin was tight, Saracens might have been another sixteen points in the lead.

From the first, Saracens looked to be the stronger team. After four minutes, a driving maul hurtled through the Sale line like a freight train. So fast, in fact, that it practically collapsed itself. Nonetheless, the penalty went against the defenders and Derick Hougaard got the home side off the mark.

That wasn’t the last of Saracens’ chances, either. From a scrum, a set piece Saracens dominated, Hougaard threw the ball out with such speed that Alex Goode couldn’t collect with the line begging.

Minutes later, Hougaard having missed the opportunity to double the lead, another striking maul crossed the line but the unfortunate mass of bodies left the television match official unable to award the try, much to Carlos Nieto’s disappointment.

The game turned soon after. Given a sniff of the try line, Sale were a different team but the definitive point came when Alex Goode, unalterably solid under the high ball in spite of the rain, went off injured after one of several Sale tackles that just happened to catch players in the air.

Lacking his generalship at the back, Noah Cato was caught embarrassingly out of position as a Charlie Hodgson chip sailed over his head. Ben Cohen was quickly onto the chance, but seemed to hesitate with the tryline beckoning. The ball was quickly re-worked, and despite two ferocious tackles first by Schalk Brits, and then Rhys Gill, Sale were perfectly positioned for Sale number eight Sisa Koyamaibole to twist over the line.

Saracens were good enough to come back with a further two penalties, including one from the restart. But Hodgson also struck, giving Saracens a second half chase.

And chase they did, although the kick always came first. With puddles starting to form even on the Stadio Vicario’s specially planted pitch, the footing became looser and the potential for knock ons greater. Although the effect on the crowd was dispiriting, and while it seems counter intuitive, Saracens’ reliance on kicking meant that they didn’t knock on once in their own half. In the whole of the second half, Sale managed only three points, and that when Saracens had taken the lead.

Saracens showed some moments of brightness. Chris Wyles, who having taken on full back duties was faultless, carved up the Sale defence returning yet another kick. But Cato was again found wanting and static when Cohen ran onto a Hodgson cross-field kick.

The continuing inclement weather made lineouts and scrums more unpredictable but with ten minutes to go Hougaard put Sarries in front and extended the lead. Sale came back, but lacked the power to make inroads.

Brendan Venter, with characteristic enthusiasm for blunt and contrary opinions, declared that Hougaard ‘was outstanding.’ I think he was broadly right, that his fly-half’s kicking controlled the game. More important perhaps was his prediction that as Saracens approach half way in the league unbeaten, they ‘are good enough as a squad’ to win. The evidence is strongly in his favour.

So Long, Blairwell

Memories of the Blair Administration; Tony’s Ten Years, by Adam Boulton

For a very brief two years, Tony Blair was almost forgotten in Britain. Gordon Brown’s premiership was the dominant political story and Blair was away from the daily accountability to the media that British politics make unavoidable. Suddenly, Blair’s bid for the EU Presidency and the apparent fatality of Labour’s fourth term have put Blair in the spotlight. The Sky News anchor, Adam Boulton, hasn’t taken his eye off the story, so that his account, though it certainly isn’t the first, and surely won’t be the last, is timely.

Boulton structures his narrative around the ‘Blairwell tour’ – the Prime Minister’s attempt to highlight his own achievements through a departure schedule of speeches, meetings and summits. Unlike most of the public, Boulton was relatively admiring of the Blair’s victory lap. They had been on a long journey together, as the comely title suggests, and Blair had dominated the political scene in a way that did not just play to his strengths as Thatcher had, but had constantly disorientated the opposition.

Moreoever, as Boulton clearly feels, the exit was classic Blair. In a typical display of imperviousness, the Prime Minister shrugged off the constraints that he had placed on himself, and in turn had been enforced on him by backbench rebellions. Further, he did so in a way that genuinely cemented a policy agenda; securing a deal on the EU budget to unfreeze France’s Common Agricultural Policy; keeping troops in Iraq to complement the US surge, and ensuring that Public Finance Initiatives (PFIs) and Academies continued to revolutionise the delivery of public health and education.

The story was, and still is, unfinished. Blair is a Statesman without a State, behind him so many wasted years and the wish he had gone further, and in front of him nothing certain – two well-intentioned foundations, a fragile international role and a reputation that is still to be secured. Boulton gives the impression that Blair is closer to where his instincts are, but pet projects are no substitute for achievement for a man who has held executive office.

A History Yet To Be Written

Boulton is hardly one-sided, but the EU Presidency affair has shown the limits of Blair’s powers. There are a whole host of questions still to be asked of Blair’s career, most of which Boulton serves to highlight, rather than answer.

First, what was the ultimate effect of Blair’s announcement that he would not seek a fourth term? Clearly, it put the third term constantly on edge, and much as commentators have tried to resolve the issue, it has never quite been answered.

Secondly, there is a question over Blair’s style. Peter Hennessy is perhaps the foremost historian of British government today, but he has never studied beyond the wasted energies of the first term. Two things stand out from Boulton’s account. Blair was the most presidential of Prime Ministers. He disliked the legislature and sidelined the Cabinet, though he always kept it well-stocked in ‘Big Beasts’. But given the sheer amount of law that made it onto the statute book, was it really the case that New Labour governed poorly?

The answer may lie in Blair’s upper middle-class penchant for self-abasement, so brilliantly captured by the ‘Yo Blair!’ episode. What is no longer remembered is the more important part of the conversation – where Blair offered to sacrifice his credibility in the Middle East to give Condoleeza Rice the opportunity to make a deal. Blair sacrificed an awful lot in his ten years, and failed to cover his core base. Some commentators say Blair killed triangulation, others interpret his whole career in that fashion. Certainly, the last word has yet to be written about the ‘Third Way’.

Another question that seems particularly resonant today is the degree to which New Labour’s naivety impeded its efforts to govern, at least for the first term. Preparation for government has become increasingly crucial as ambitions and bureaucracy grows. New Labour were underprepared when they came to power, and promised more tangible objects than any government before. The result was a plausibility gap.

The other New Labour preoccupation was the media. Boulton is understandably keen to defend his side and in any case, he believes that it was Alistair Campbell’s one-man-war on the press that so discredited Blair.

Memories of the Blair Administration is unsurprisingly journalistic in style. That need not be an insult. As Timothy Garton Ash has observed, journalists and academics like to use each others professions as insults, but interesting facts need to be taken to their full conclusion. There is a lot of history still to be written about the Blair Administration, something that the Iraq War Inquiry is doing as we speak.

A Makeshift England Makes For A Disappointing Series

Martin Johnson has endured yet another appalling week of press.  Though it would be quite improbable for the RFU to sack him (downgraded from impossible only by the tantalising availability of Ian McGeechan and Jake White), the first calls a coach to be replaced are a step down a road thatno coach wants to be on.

Such is the forensic nature of the coverage that England have been getting – and we really are getting to be like the Kiwis in the pressure we put on our national team – it’s worth reminding ourselves where Martin Johnson is at the moment.  First, there are the seemingly forgotten injuries.  In Ellis, Armitage, Flutey and Flood, England are missing most of the backline that played in the Six Nations.  In the forwards, Simon Shaw has just returned from injury, Phil Vickery, Julian White and Andrew Sheridan are missing up front and Nick East, who though not to everyone’s taste, carries well, is also out.

This is also a team without the core of leaders who were decisive in the player-power revolution that led to Brian Ashton’s good fortune in the 2007 World Cup.  Corry, Dallaglio, Catt, Robinson, and of course Vickery were just four of the hugely-experienced decision makers on the field that year.

Martin Johnson’s team seem to lack a defined style or strategy, which of course is largely his fault.  Two years from a World Cup, that is a big concern.  But injuries have meant that this series was always going to be a mixture of holding on, and giving younger players an opportunity to gain experience.  On that count, they’ve not done too badly.

That’s why Stephen Jones’ ‘report’ of the game, in which he savages the team, is counter-productive.  England’s problem is that they haven’t begun to gel as a team, that leaders haven’t yet emerged.  Borthwick is a quiet and steady presence, unfavourable for the media, but it is not the captain who makes every decision.  Jones risks stamping on the fragile gains in team spirit that England have made under Johnson.  Of course, when measured against the dynamism of the British Lions, or even of England’s 2007 squad, this team comes up short.  However, compared to the last Six Nations, which seems so long ago, there has been a dramatic improvement.  England are at least a little more consistent, and have ironed out their ruinous ill-discipline.

On the other hand, his incendiary article should probably be posted in the dressing room as an incentive for the team.  What Martin Johnson should be doing is creating a group of thirty players he is likely to take to the World Cup and using the negative coverage to fire them up and create a sense of unity.  He has a number of games left, in which England have to get used to each other.