On the cover of the new issue of Private Eye, Herman Van Rompuy and Baroness Ashton are embracing each other under the headline “European Union: It’s the Kiss of Death!” His speech bubble says “ I love EU …”, hers “… and I love EU too!” and along the bottom runs the legend “On Other Pages: Who are EU two?”
It’s a long way from the magazine’s best effort, combining a Sun-type gor-blimey pun with a very conventional take on the news. The press – in Britain, at least – have united in scoffing at the European Union’s appointments to the new posts created under the Lisbon treaty. The consensus is that these two new officers of the union are at best lightweights and unknown quantities.
I find this at best presumptuous, insulting and more informative about the nature of the consensus than about the individuals in question. If political commentators in London have not heard of Cathy Ashton – and an Express leader headline managed to call her Margaret Ashton – that merely shows how little notice the British press takes of European politics generally.
The new EU stars
But of course most of them have heard of her. Belittling her name recognition is just an affectation, all part of the anti-Labour stance now widely embraced in what used to be called Fleet Street. If for no better reason, they know her as the wife of Peter Kellner, long one of their own and in recent years the frontman for the psephological organisation YouGov. But on her own terms, Ashton was Labour leader in the Lords before going to Brussels to succeed Peter Mandelson as Commissioner for Trade, a role in which she evidently impressed. She is amply qualified for her new job.
Much more press fuss has been made about the supposed obscurity of Ashton than about the supposed obscurity of Van Rompuy and paradoxically that is of course because he really is an unknown to the British press, being merely the prime minister of a nearby country. What could be duller for a British newspaper than to concern itself with the politics of Belgium? Indeed, the anti-Europe bias in the press is as evident as the anti-Labour bias. The egregious columnist of The Daily Telegraph, Simon Heffer, considers himself a card for referring to the new Chairman of the European Council as “Mr Rumpy Pumpy”. Do you see what he did there? Eh? Do you see? My long-time name for the columnist is Syphon Effluent. It’s a damned sight more pertinent than Mr Rumpy Pumpy.
The narrative here is really too obvious for the commentators to bother expounding. Van Rompuy and Ashton got the jobs because of a stitch-up between the wicked Germans and the slimy French who needed patsies whom they could boss around so that they would be able to arrogate all the power to themselves. This Ruritanian vision of Europe is made plausible by the absence of any substantial on-going coverage of Europe.
Let’s try to make some sense of it. There is certainly history here. When the presidency of the European Commission fell vacant five years ago, France and Germany wanted the then Belgian premier, Guy Verhofstadt, to have the post. But Verhofstadt’s strong criticism of the invasion of Iraq and his opposition to any mention of god in the European Constitution predictably alienated Tony Blair and his Catholic-and-invasion ally, José Maria Aznar of Spain. After protracted negotiations, a compromise candidate was found, one whose name meant little in Fleet Street: José Manuel Barroso. No doubt Barroso’s name is still obscure to most voters and even to some journalists (who, I bet, need to check his spelling when they have call to use it) but the former prime minister of Portugal’s first term was generally considered a success among those who count – pro-European politicians – and he easily won re-election.
Blair’s opposition to Verhofstadt, almost as much as his role in the Iraq war, ensured that any aspiration he might have entertained to be EC chairman would be futile. Serve him right. David Miliband’s attempt to talk up Blair’s chances by describing him as one who would “stop the traffic” in Beijing was never seriously a consideration. The office itself opens the necessary doors if not the jams. Van Rompuy and Ashton can get anyone they wish to consult to the phone in minutes and to a meeting at short notice. Just because the Sunday Express doesn’t know who they are, it doesn’t mean that Washington, Beijing, New Delhi, Jerusalem, Pretoria and all other homes of key players did not bone up within minutes of the appointments being confirmed.
And there’s another bone of contention artificially worried by the dogs of Fleet Street and beyond. Oh gosh, these people weren’t elected, goes up the cry. Quick, what are they paid? Who, if anyone, are they answerable to? Lots of powerful people have not submitted themselves to any electorate. Billionaire newspaper proprietors who live in tax exile, just for starters. The British prime minister for another, and several of his ministers (notably Peter, Lord Mandelson). But don’t let’s get too carried away about that. Two of the last four Tory prime ministers arrived in Downing Street without benefit of a popular vote. John Major made himself more legitimate by winning an election in 1992 – as against the odds as Labour will do if they win next year. But Sir Alec Douglas-Home was a hereditary peer when the Tory suits decided he should succeed Harold Macmillan (who also was never elected) as PM in 1963 and he had to renounce his earldom and fight a by-election in order to join the Commons before he could take up office. Surely it couldn’t happen now.
In the States, everyone down to city dog-catcher gets to be on the ballot paper when voting time comes round, but the government in Washington is made up wholly of appointees, many of whom have never sought elective office. The argument that people should all be elected only really starts to be pregnant in a comprehensively informed electorate. Ours is far from being even moderately informed. It’s clear, after two mayors of London, that only someone known by his or her first name has any chance of being elected to the position. That seems to make Camilla, Esther, Stelios, Kylie, Ant, Dec and Brucie the front-runners to succeed Boris.
Head teachers, chiefs of police, magistrates, chiefs of staff, chief executives of strategic health authorities and any number of other key wielders of power are appointees rather than elected tribunes. The primary advantage of appointing someone to a position of power is that the considerations that inform the appointment centre on suitability, skill, contacts, quickness of study and ability to manage a team. These are not qualities that the electorate looks for, let alone is competent to judge. Being good on the telly may weigh with a lot of voters but what it tends to put into office is George W Bush.
The supposed desire for figures stepping onto the world stage to be already “household names” is in any case rarely heeded. My mother, a reasonably well-informed woman, died in summer 1988 and I have often reflected how strange it is that the man who became British prime minister only 16 months later was someone of whom she probably had not heard and certainly would not have recognised from a photograph.
In The Guardian recently, that prize ass Mark Lawson wrote a supposedly comical piece set five years hence in which the American president was Sarah Palin and the British prime minister Boris Johnson. Were I a betting man, I would wager that he’s completely wrong. After all, he might have bet on Gordon Brown five years ago but he wouldn’t have anticipated President Obama. Who did, back then? After his famous speech at the 2004 Democrats’ convention, people certainly said “one day that man will be president”. Not many would have thought he would be the next one. Fame in politics is a fast-moving phenomenon. Can you hazard who, at the outset of 1990, was the hot favourite to succeed Thatcher? Not John Major, obviously. I’ll tell you at the foot of the posting.
The electoral process generates much more chance and unpredictability than any other system (which is why I keep saying that the triumphant election of the Tories next May cannot be seen as a foregone conclusion). Appointment is designed to control events, smooth the way for successful government and head off unpredictability. Those who sat down to dinner and thrashed out the deal that led to the appointments of Van Rompuy and Ashton knew their candidates and believed them able to carry out their duties to the European Commission’s advantage. Whatever horse-trading went on, it is hardly in the interests of President Sarkozy or Chancellor Merkel to saddle themselves with team leaders who are not up the job. Let’s just be grown-up about this.
Oh and the anointed successor expected to become Tory leader after the dreaded Margaret was none other than Kenneth Baker. Oh yes.
