Christopher Meyer: Which President would be best for Britain?
[Sir Christopher Meyer is former British Ambassador to Washington.]
Republican friends of ours in New York rang the other day in deep depression: Obama, they said, was going to win and the United States would have a socialist government. Even in Britain there is an expectation that, if Obama triumphs and the Democrats tighten their grip on Congress, America will take a sharp left turn.
It is misleading to judge an American election through a British political lens. The centre of gravity in US politics is some way to the right of its equivalent in Britain. In some parts of America, to be called Left-wing liberal is only slightly less damning than "socialist". By US standards, David Cameron and Tony Blair are Left-wing liberals. How can that be, when Blair and Clinton jointly espoused the Third Way? But this was electoral strategy dressed up as ideology. When Clinton and Blair tried to extend the Third Way to Left-of-centre politicians across the world, it did not work. There was not enough doctrinal glue to go round.
Take health care. Support for the NHS is a given across the British political spectrum. Obama has promised big changes. But his manifesto rejects government-run health care - what many Americans call "socialised medicine" - and advocates reform of the current system based on private health insurance. Then there is Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, who has struck the fear of God into Europeans (and many Americans) as a bible-bashing nutter. But in many parts of America you can be pro-God, pro-creationism, pro-life, pro-guns, pro-moose skinning, and remain within the political mainstream.
It follows that Labour and Democrats, Conservatives and Republicans, despite some philosophical overlap, are far from automatic bedfellows; and British politicians would do well not to express their preference in an election year. There is a risk of damaging your relations with the future president. John Major had a rocky start with Clinton because the White House thought the Tories had tried to help Bush senior in 1992. If McCain pulls off a victory against the odds, we have to hope that Gordon Brown's relations with the White House will not suffer from his having shown too much Obama-loving ankle.
Then there is history; and the true nature of the "Special Relationship". It is salutary to recall the words of Dean Acheson, President Truman's secretary of state, who said that "a unique relation existed between Britain and America... but unique did not mean affectionate. We had fought England as our enemy as often as we had fought by her side as an ally." A little harsh, maybe, but with an important kernel of truth.
Since 1945, the relationship has gone through sharp troughs and peaks. These have had almost nothing to do with whichever party was in power. It has always been about interests and issues - and, at the margin, personal chemistry between leaders. We kicked off the post-war period with an almighty row between Attlee's Labour government and Truman's Democratic administration over an American loan. Wilson, a Labour prime minister, got on appallingly with Johnson, a Democratic president, who disliked him for not sending troops to Vietnam and for smoking a pipe in the Oval Office. Thatcher had a strikingly close relationship with one Republican president, Reagan, and a rather awkward one with another Republican, Bush the elder. Blair had famously close relations with a Democratic and a Republican.
I have no idea - I have never met him - what Obama thinks of Britain, though in one of his attacks against Bush, he dismissively brackets the UK with Togo. McCain, whom I knew well and liked, is to all appearances a declared anglophile. But, none of this is relevant. America will act on an unsentimental calculation of where its national interest lies. The problem with the rhetoric of the Special Relationship is that it implicitly denies this reality, putting a burden of expectation on the ties between our two countries, which they cannot bear...
Read entire article at Daily Telegraph (UK)
Republican friends of ours in New York rang the other day in deep depression: Obama, they said, was going to win and the United States would have a socialist government. Even in Britain there is an expectation that, if Obama triumphs and the Democrats tighten their grip on Congress, America will take a sharp left turn.
It is misleading to judge an American election through a British political lens. The centre of gravity in US politics is some way to the right of its equivalent in Britain. In some parts of America, to be called Left-wing liberal is only slightly less damning than "socialist". By US standards, David Cameron and Tony Blair are Left-wing liberals. How can that be, when Blair and Clinton jointly espoused the Third Way? But this was electoral strategy dressed up as ideology. When Clinton and Blair tried to extend the Third Way to Left-of-centre politicians across the world, it did not work. There was not enough doctrinal glue to go round.
Take health care. Support for the NHS is a given across the British political spectrum. Obama has promised big changes. But his manifesto rejects government-run health care - what many Americans call "socialised medicine" - and advocates reform of the current system based on private health insurance. Then there is Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, who has struck the fear of God into Europeans (and many Americans) as a bible-bashing nutter. But in many parts of America you can be pro-God, pro-creationism, pro-life, pro-guns, pro-moose skinning, and remain within the political mainstream.
It follows that Labour and Democrats, Conservatives and Republicans, despite some philosophical overlap, are far from automatic bedfellows; and British politicians would do well not to express their preference in an election year. There is a risk of damaging your relations with the future president. John Major had a rocky start with Clinton because the White House thought the Tories had tried to help Bush senior in 1992. If McCain pulls off a victory against the odds, we have to hope that Gordon Brown's relations with the White House will not suffer from his having shown too much Obama-loving ankle.
Then there is history; and the true nature of the "Special Relationship". It is salutary to recall the words of Dean Acheson, President Truman's secretary of state, who said that "a unique relation existed between Britain and America... but unique did not mean affectionate. We had fought England as our enemy as often as we had fought by her side as an ally." A little harsh, maybe, but with an important kernel of truth.
Since 1945, the relationship has gone through sharp troughs and peaks. These have had almost nothing to do with whichever party was in power. It has always been about interests and issues - and, at the margin, personal chemistry between leaders. We kicked off the post-war period with an almighty row between Attlee's Labour government and Truman's Democratic administration over an American loan. Wilson, a Labour prime minister, got on appallingly with Johnson, a Democratic president, who disliked him for not sending troops to Vietnam and for smoking a pipe in the Oval Office. Thatcher had a strikingly close relationship with one Republican president, Reagan, and a rather awkward one with another Republican, Bush the elder. Blair had famously close relations with a Democratic and a Republican.
I have no idea - I have never met him - what Obama thinks of Britain, though in one of his attacks against Bush, he dismissively brackets the UK with Togo. McCain, whom I knew well and liked, is to all appearances a declared anglophile. But, none of this is relevant. America will act on an unsentimental calculation of where its national interest lies. The problem with the rhetoric of the Special Relationship is that it implicitly denies this reality, putting a burden of expectation on the ties between our two countries, which they cannot bear...