Michael White: London summit ... we've been here before
[Michael White has been writing for the Guardian for over 30 years, as a reporter, foreign correspondent and columnist.]
I'm not writing from the press centre at the G20 summit in east London this morning, having seen enough of such events to be happy to stay away. Patrick Wintour, Nick Watt and Andrew Sparrow have been there since pre-dawn for the Guardian's political team.
There's a pattern to summit organisation whether it is the EU, G8, Nato, UN, US-USSR (in the old days) or any other where large numbers of nation states gather at heads of government (more or less) level to resolve great issues of the day. The record is mixed, but "jaw jaw" is always better than "war war".
Nowadays they attract lots of reporters, hoping to be present at some important turning point, but braced for disappointment, sometimes half-hoping for it. Disaster is disastrous, but in our topsy-turvy world it makes for a better story.
Catering for several thousand media creates logistical and practical problems of it own. Twenty years ago such events were still modest enough to allow the hacks to share the conference venue, an Italian palazzo, Dublin castle or the Strasbourg conference centre.
You could see the great men sweep past with their entourage as you sipped your mid-morning coffee after talking to HQ in London over an old-fashioned phone.
Then, as now, each delegation has briefing rooms and briefers, who share edited accounts, passed down the line from those actually in the conference room. Each highlights national priorities, points won or lost, logjams or the selfish conduct of a rival delegation.
These days the conference is often held far from the press centre so that control is easier. At the G8 on Sea Island, Georgia, the press were stranded on the mainland, the summiteers safe across the sea 70 miles away. It's an extreme case, but the current trend; another form of crowd control.
Patrick Wintour has just rung to tell me that the press centre is actually in the cavernous ExCel Centre with the summiteers this time and that they are getting plenty of briefing. So morale is high. The press room – 2,000 strong – is full of flags and trestle tables, much like an EU summit.
Gordon Brown will probably go to bed feeling it's been worth the effort.
Margaret Thatcher was hectoring but formidable on such occasions. Ronald Reagan was charming but vague, Tony Blair charming, less vague, François Mitterrand silky and seductive, Jacques Chirac easily provoked into bombast, Helmut Kohl immobile. And so on.
Bill Clinton was probably the best at summit chat because he was both articulate and human, less professorial, more emotional than president Obama, as I noted here yesterday. Both George W Bush and his father may have been the most disconcerting, neither very articulate nor charismatic.
Perhaps the most impressive performance I witnessed several times was Mikhail Gorbachev who dominated by sheer force of personality. He could be long-winded but he always had something to say and rarely seemed disconcerted.
When the microphones went off in one row of seats at a Reagan-Gorby summit press conference he took charge, organised the reporters into changing seats and sailed on as if nothing amiss had befallen Soviet technology. "He's a mensch," I recall Hella Pick, the Guardian's veteran diplomatic correspondent, whispering in my ear.
The conference disaster which still leaves a shadow over today's event is the London monetary and economic conference, held under the auspices of the League of Nations (doomed precursor of the UN) in June 1933. Ramsay MacDonald, Labour prime minister of the Tory-dominated national government coalition, presided...
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
I'm not writing from the press centre at the G20 summit in east London this morning, having seen enough of such events to be happy to stay away. Patrick Wintour, Nick Watt and Andrew Sparrow have been there since pre-dawn for the Guardian's political team.
There's a pattern to summit organisation whether it is the EU, G8, Nato, UN, US-USSR (in the old days) or any other where large numbers of nation states gather at heads of government (more or less) level to resolve great issues of the day. The record is mixed, but "jaw jaw" is always better than "war war".
Nowadays they attract lots of reporters, hoping to be present at some important turning point, but braced for disappointment, sometimes half-hoping for it. Disaster is disastrous, but in our topsy-turvy world it makes for a better story.
Catering for several thousand media creates logistical and practical problems of it own. Twenty years ago such events were still modest enough to allow the hacks to share the conference venue, an Italian palazzo, Dublin castle or the Strasbourg conference centre.
You could see the great men sweep past with their entourage as you sipped your mid-morning coffee after talking to HQ in London over an old-fashioned phone.
Then, as now, each delegation has briefing rooms and briefers, who share edited accounts, passed down the line from those actually in the conference room. Each highlights national priorities, points won or lost, logjams or the selfish conduct of a rival delegation.
These days the conference is often held far from the press centre so that control is easier. At the G8 on Sea Island, Georgia, the press were stranded on the mainland, the summiteers safe across the sea 70 miles away. It's an extreme case, but the current trend; another form of crowd control.
Patrick Wintour has just rung to tell me that the press centre is actually in the cavernous ExCel Centre with the summiteers this time and that they are getting plenty of briefing. So morale is high. The press room – 2,000 strong – is full of flags and trestle tables, much like an EU summit.
Gordon Brown will probably go to bed feeling it's been worth the effort.
Margaret Thatcher was hectoring but formidable on such occasions. Ronald Reagan was charming but vague, Tony Blair charming, less vague, François Mitterrand silky and seductive, Jacques Chirac easily provoked into bombast, Helmut Kohl immobile. And so on.
Bill Clinton was probably the best at summit chat because he was both articulate and human, less professorial, more emotional than president Obama, as I noted here yesterday. Both George W Bush and his father may have been the most disconcerting, neither very articulate nor charismatic.
Perhaps the most impressive performance I witnessed several times was Mikhail Gorbachev who dominated by sheer force of personality. He could be long-winded but he always had something to say and rarely seemed disconcerted.
When the microphones went off in one row of seats at a Reagan-Gorby summit press conference he took charge, organised the reporters into changing seats and sailed on as if nothing amiss had befallen Soviet technology. "He's a mensch," I recall Hella Pick, the Guardian's veteran diplomatic correspondent, whispering in my ear.
The conference disaster which still leaves a shadow over today's event is the London monetary and economic conference, held under the auspices of the League of Nations (doomed precursor of the UN) in June 1933. Ramsay MacDonald, Labour prime minister of the Tory-dominated national government coalition, presided...