Protesting outside summits is the flavour of the month. Barely have the G20 demonstrators been pushed out of the City of London than police in the Thai resort of Pattaya are trying to keep red-shirted supporters of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra away from the hotel where leaders from the 10 South East Asian countries are due to gather for an ASEAN summit. In this case, though, the protest and associated anger are essentially domestic, as the demonstrators are calling for the current PM, Abhisit Vejjajiva, to resign. The protest leader, Arismun Pongreungrong, said the Redshirts do not intend to damage anything, but ‘we have to show the world that this government is not democratic.’
It would be a shame if the protests did disrupt the summit, as ASEAN needs a meeting to discuss the region’s approach to the current global economic and financial crisis. Mr Abhisit and the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, were both at the G20 summit in London, but the Pattaya meeting should be more than a report-back from that. As I wrote in an article for the next issue of Diplomat magazine, the situation of the different ASEAN member states varies enomously. Indonesia, for example, still expects to enjoy around four per cent growth this year, whereas Singapore — which is heavily dependent on trade — has seen a sharp contraction. It will be interesting to see if ASEAN can come up with a more united front than the EU has managed to do.
In the meantime, Abhisit has to figure out how to deal with the wave of pro-Thaksin protests that has been sweeping the country for months, as well as the polarisation in Thailand between the Redshirts and the yellow-shirted campaigners of the conservative People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which is close to some members of Abhisit’s government yet also keeping a close eye on the Prime Minister’s performance.
This evening, Liberal International British Group (LIBG) held the first in a planned series of four Forums on the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in the New World Order, being steered through the choppy waters of Russia, past, present and future, at Pushkin House in London by Stephen Dalziel, Executive Director of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce and former Russian Affairs analyst at the BBC. For me (in the Chair), his most interesting observation was that Vladimir Putin, now Russian Prime Minister, is not trying to usurp the power of the position of President Dmitry Medvedev (his sucessor in that post), in contrast to what one often reads in the Western media. Putin accepts Medvedev’s primacy in foreign affairs (as the constitution stipulates); besides, he has enough on his plate to deal with in relation to Russia’s shrinking economy, which has been hard hit by falling energy prices.
While the G20 leaders were meeting at the Excel Centre in Newham yesterday afternoon, I was speaking at a packed meeting in the House of Commons, organised by the Universal Peace Federation on ‘New Vision amid the Economic Crisis’. I argued that the New World Order implicit in moving from G8 to G20 must mean more than just a shift in the power balance in the world, though that is important in itself, giving a seat at the top table to emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil. More important is the need to move the focus away from the phallic temples of Canary Wharf (which I can see from my front windows) and other financial centres to the needs and concerns of ordinary people. Politics, as well as economics, need to be closer to those whose lives they affect. And I urged everyone in the room — mainly leaders of the different religious communities here in the multicultural UK as well as NGO representatives — to use new media as a way of getting their views across, through blogs, commenting on other people’s blogs, Facebook, Twitter and so on.
The Liberal Democrats have continued their winning streak in the London borough of Camden, comfortably holding onto Belsize ward in a by-election caused by the sad resignation of one of their councillors due to ill-health. The Conservatives threw everything they had into this contest, still smarting about losing all three seats in Belsize in 2006 by a narrow margin — including the Tory group leader. And the result of this mega-effort by David Cameron’s lads and lasses this time? The LibDems increased their majority, and have a bright new young councillor in the form of Tom Simon. Result: LibDem 1136, Conservative 952, Labour270, Green 109. In a recent by-election next door in Hampstead Town ward, the Tories lost a seat to the LibDems, sending the equally bright and energetic Linda Chung to the Town Hall. This all bodes well for the European and general elections in that part of the capital.
Britain’s Europe Minister, Caroline Flint, caused gasps in the House of Commons yesterday, when she admitted that she had not read all of the Lisbon Treaty. I have often chided New Labour for not making the case for the Treaty stongly enough to the British public, but this really takes the biscuit. For once, I agree with UKIP leader Nigel Farage MEP, who commented, ‘a Minister being in this position of simply not being bothered is staggeringly insulting to the people she is supposed to represent.’ She is clearly not fit for purpose, nor is this increasingly tarnished government.
