SYRIAN CRISIS : WHO'S PULLING WHOSE STRINGS?

Few would deny that Vladimir Putin is an ambiguous figure, or that the sale of Russian weapons to Syria is helping to fuel the crisis there. However, those arming the Syrian opposition, including Saudi Arabia, cannot be regarded as any more progressive than Russia. The emerging consensus, reflected in the UK Parliament's vote of last week, that the crisis requires multi-lateral action led by the United Nations was finely articulated by the UN's former Chief Weapons Inspector, Hans Blix, this morning on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme. Blix called into question former British prime minister Tony Blair's role as a "protagonist for intervention" in Syria, presumably in his capacity as Middle East Peace Envoy. I say "presumably" because it is never very clear whose interests Blair represents, other than his own. What is quite remarkable is that one with a record on the international scene arguably even more ambiguous than that of Mr Putin should still be treated so uncritically by the BBC and many others.

FAT CAT PLAYS WITH OSBORNE & BALLS PUPPETS

As someone providing retirement care for a former working cat - chief pest controller at a farm business (sadly, the well-to-do owner did not provide her with a pension) - I just love this Gary Barker cartoon from The Times. Not usually a reader of the paper, I only discovered the sketch this morning whilst googling a story about the shadow chancellor being offered up by Labour for a large transfer fee to an unspecified foreign government in order to tackle the Party's financial deficit left by the withdrawal of trade union funding. I was so looking forward to Ed Balls disappearing off the scene, but, unfortunately, could not find any hard evidence of the scoop, although there may be another political caricature along these lines somewhere in today's press. However, Barker's "Smoke v Mirrors" cartoon encapsulates so well the shadow-boxing that takes place between Chancellor George Osborne and his Labour opposition Ed Balls around the subject of the British economy, that my disappointment is almost overcome.

WEF GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS INDEX 2013-14

The World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index 2013-14, published yesterday, has the following top 10 ranking:

1. Switzerland
2. Singapore
3. Finland
4. Germany
5. United States
6. Sweden
7. Hong Kong SAR
8. Netherlands
9. Japan
10. United Kingdom

Britain's position in the "Country Profile Highlights" is described thus:

"The United Kingdom (10th) rounds out the top 10, falling by two places in this year’s assessment. The country deteriorates slightly in several areas, most notably its macroeconomic environment and its financial markets. Overall, the United Kingdom benefits from clear strengths such as the efficiency of its labor market (5th), in sharp contrast to the rigidity of those of many other European countries. The country continues to have sophisticated (9th) and innovative (12th) businesses that are highly adept at harnessing the latest technologies for productivity improvements and operating in a very large market (it is ranked 6th for market size). The highly developed financial market also remains a strength overall, despite some weakening since last year. All these characteristics are important for spurring productivity enhancements. On the other hand, the country’s macroeconomic environment (115th, down from 85th two years ago) represents the greatest drag on its competitiveness, with a fiscal deficit above 8 percent in 2012, an increase of over 7 percentage points in public debt amounting to 90.3 percent of GDP in 2012 (136th), and a comparatively low national savings rate (10.8 percent of GDP in 2012, 122nd)."

The full report is available at http://reports.weforum.org/the-global-competitiveness-report-2013-2014

ANGELA MERKEL: GOVERNMENT IS FOR GROWN-UPS

One of the most annoying aspects of New Labour's zenith, fortunately now long passed, was its adulation by journalists who should have known better. Amongst the most fawning of these was the Financial Times senior editor Phillip Stephens, who wrote a biography of former prime minister Blair which has been summed up as "engaging and slickly presented but ultimately lacking in depth". Sounds very New Labour! Along with Blair, Stephens was sounding off last week about Britain's response to the crisis in Syria. Thankfully, we now live in a post-Blair world where parliamentary democracy might actually mean something.

I say "might" because we are not there yet. At the heart of New Labour was a fundamental confusion between politics and government, from which the present Coalition has not yet fully emerged. The ultimate author of this confusion was probably Peter Mandelson rather than Tony Blair. Indeed, Mandelson's autobiography, "The Third Man" published in 2010, is a very good book about politics, but weak on government. As a potted history of the Labour Party from the 1970s it is excellent. Similarly, if one enjoys chintzy insights into the private lives of politicians, the book is eminently readable. However, nowhere does New Labour emerge in it as a credible party of government, and "The Third Man" often comes across as an elegantly written teen diary, whose middle youth protagonists are endlessly pre-occupied with their group status and latest relationship.

To some extent New Labour was also a coalition in all but name, with Lord Mandelson as its king-maker. We now have a genuine Coalition of political expediency and weak government. This has more to do with the composition of the present coalition, rather than the weakness of coalition government per se. Ministerial positions have tended to be allocated to those most politically acceptable to their party leaders, rather than to those best equipped to make the government work for the nation. The same was also true of New Labour. The result is that some of the most able people are excluded from power and thus seek to undermine it. Who ever leads the next government, therefore, needs to look elsewhere for models of coalition leadership, for there is a good chance that the UK (or England, Wales and Northern Ireland) could have another one after the next election. 

If Blair was the defining European politician in the early years of the twentieth century, the German Chancellor Merkel has succeeded him in this role, but through substance rather than spin. The new generation of British politicians would do well to look to her style of leadership at home and abroad. Whilst this leadership is not without critics, particularly in those parts of the continent which have borne the brunt of European Union austerity measures to tackle the sovereign debt crisis, it has demonstrated the difference between politics and government. I was surprised that Angela Merkel hardly receives a mention in his autobiography, although Lord Mandelson was European Trade Commissioner when she came to power. His failure to recognise a woman who would emerge as one of the world's most powerful leaders, and a country whose economy was very much on the ascendant, clearly demonstrates that successful government requires grown-ups (and a mature media) to run it.