A good man in Africa - bit of a problem back home
The prime minister reported back to the Commons yesterday on the G8 summit in the Canadian resort of Kananaskis. This was held in the wilderness, at least two hours from the nearest Starbucks, in order to foil anti-globalisation protesters.
I can't think why. In rural Canada during the summer months, the mosquitoes are quite burly and determined enough to pitch a petrol bomb through a police line. And if you tried to swat them, they'd sue you.
Mr Blair came among us in his role as prime minister (abroad). This is in contrast to Mr Brown, who is prime minister (home affairs). It is Mr Brown's job to stop ministers getting more money for education, police, transport and so forth, especially if those ministers might one day run for leadership of the Labour party. It is Mr Blair's job to improve the lot of all humankind.
It happens to all prime ministers. The world begins to seem a much more fascinating place than predictable, querulous, dreary old Britain. At prime minister's questions these days Mr Blair seems a little tetchy, taut, resentful, peeved at having to deal with the late-running 7.53, the increased number of muggings, and ungrateful MPs whose constituents have had to wait two years for a hip replacement.
Yesterday, as he set about rescuing Africa from poverty, disease, ignorance and corruption, he radiated an inner glow. He had a real moral purpose. At last there was something he could do something about. He was happy.
Who can blame him? Is it not more important that, as he told us, since 1992 a Ugandan child is twice as likely to go to school than that the police station in Ambridge is now open only in office hours? Is it not a reason to rejoice that Mozambique has grown 9% over the past four years, beside which the delayed widening of the A303 is of no consequence at all?
At times his masterplan may seem a little naive. We learned that African nations had agreed "to raise standards of governance" and had committed themselves to "a peer-review mechanism" which "will provide an objective assessment", making it sound like an article offered for publication in Nature. In any case, fairly constant peer review has achieved little in Zimbabwe.
Suddenly, like all true enthusiasts, he had lost himself in the jargon. There was $26m to go into the HIPC initiative (it's pronounced "hippic".) He was keen on Nepad, the new partnership for Africa's development, on UN security resolutions 242 and 338, and something called complementarity. Who has time to spell out what these things mean when you are engaged on such a mighty endeavour?
Everything else seems trivial by comparison. In Canada, while he sat chatting with presidents and premiers, as insects smashed into the windows like drunken kamikaze pilots, the footling problems and nitpicking complaints of MPs back home must have seemed hopelessly distant.
Iain Duncan Smith tried to make Zimbabwe a party political affair. If neither the communique nor Mr Blair's statement mentioned the appalling Mugabe - if, with all the might at their disposal, they could do nothing there, what hope was there for the rest of Africa?
Mr Blair looked pitying. How could he understand? How, mired in his own puny concerns and ambitions, could he begin to grasp the size of this great project?
I have much sympathy. All of us who have ever been to Africa must hope that the scheme succeeds. But there should be a little voice whispering in Mr Blair's ear, pointing out the sad but salient fact that nobody in Africa has a vote here.
I can't think why. In rural Canada during the summer months, the mosquitoes are quite burly and determined enough to pitch a petrol bomb through a police line. And if you tried to swat them, they'd sue you.
Mr Blair came among us in his role as prime minister (abroad). This is in contrast to Mr Brown, who is prime minister (home affairs). It is Mr Brown's job to stop ministers getting more money for education, police, transport and so forth, especially if those ministers might one day run for leadership of the Labour party. It is Mr Blair's job to improve the lot of all humankind.
It happens to all prime ministers. The world begins to seem a much more fascinating place than predictable, querulous, dreary old Britain. At prime minister's questions these days Mr Blair seems a little tetchy, taut, resentful, peeved at having to deal with the late-running 7.53, the increased number of muggings, and ungrateful MPs whose constituents have had to wait two years for a hip replacement.
Yesterday, as he set about rescuing Africa from poverty, disease, ignorance and corruption, he radiated an inner glow. He had a real moral purpose. At last there was something he could do something about. He was happy.
Who can blame him? Is it not more important that, as he told us, since 1992 a Ugandan child is twice as likely to go to school than that the police station in Ambridge is now open only in office hours? Is it not a reason to rejoice that Mozambique has grown 9% over the past four years, beside which the delayed widening of the A303 is of no consequence at all?
At times his masterplan may seem a little naive. We learned that African nations had agreed "to raise standards of governance" and had committed themselves to "a peer-review mechanism" which "will provide an objective assessment", making it sound like an article offered for publication in Nature. In any case, fairly constant peer review has achieved little in Zimbabwe.
Suddenly, like all true enthusiasts, he had lost himself in the jargon. There was $26m to go into the HIPC initiative (it's pronounced "hippic".) He was keen on Nepad, the new partnership for Africa's development, on UN security resolutions 242 and 338, and something called complementarity. Who has time to spell out what these things mean when you are engaged on such a mighty endeavour?
Everything else seems trivial by comparison. In Canada, while he sat chatting with presidents and premiers, as insects smashed into the windows like drunken kamikaze pilots, the footling problems and nitpicking complaints of MPs back home must have seemed hopelessly distant.
Iain Duncan Smith tried to make Zimbabwe a party political affair. If neither the communique nor Mr Blair's statement mentioned the appalling Mugabe - if, with all the might at their disposal, they could do nothing there, what hope was there for the rest of Africa?
Mr Blair looked pitying. How could he understand? How, mired in his own puny concerns and ambitions, could he begin to grasp the size of this great project?
I have much sympathy. All of us who have ever been to Africa must hope that the scheme succeeds. But there should be a little voice whispering in Mr Blair's ear, pointing out the sad but salient fact that nobody in Africa has a vote here.
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