I think opposition parties and their foreign policy is an impossible situation to judge, regardless of which party we are talking about. We will never know to what extent Cameron’s reaction to recent events was the result of foreign strategy or political strategy aimed at outflanking his opponents. I seem to remember that Cameron was indeed very fast to react to the Georgia crisis, but may have been less hasty had he been in charge.

I agree with your concerns but it is ultimately a debate that can never be answered unless Cameron and Hague are in charge.

Was there a commitment to respecting international law?

Humility, patience and continuing to sell weapons to ridiculously oppressive foreign governments. Obviously.

Tories not selling arms to any customer? Are you kidding me? Not only will is happen the UK tax payer will subsidise it.

As for Tory foreign policy – will the “Argies” be invading the Falklands any time soon?

the Georgia thing is exactly what we’re going to get, a kind of low-rent version of Sarkozy. I don’t quite know how Hague can say he wants to make Britain closer to Russia with a straight face, based on Cameron’s antics last summer.

When the current comparator is David Miliband, anyone would appear qualified and competent. Let’s face it all of the fears you cite about Cameron (approach to the arms trade, overreaction, lack of humility, no nuanced diplomacy) have been realised here and now in the figure of Miliband.

LFaT – I’m not convinced by that because it’s the argument people use against the Libdems too. Being in opposition is no excuse to behaving like a bunch of ignorant schoolboys when it comes to foreign policy.

Frankly, I’m just glad we’lll have a lefty Prez in the US when the Cameron lot come in, and they’ll have to face the same sort of indignation from the right as Blair had to face from the left. It’ll be most amusing.

(how long before someone says Obama isn’t on the left?)

The difference between Labour and Conservative foreign policy always proved to be negligible, two slight variants of imperialism with different emphasis on rhetoric at best, but Hague’s commitment to dropping even the pretense of concern for human rights doesn’t give me any joy. As for the Tories ultra neoliberal international aid plans, frankly they should fill any anti poverty and social justice campaigner’s heart with dread. They basically read like a giant international PFI scheme:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/05/conservatives-school-vouchers-developing-world

Did a “pretense of concern for human rights” not take us into Iraq? Perhaps less of that would be a good thing.

Nope, that formed part of the post facto justification. I can’t remember the offical reason for going in but I think it was to do with WD40 or something. Saddam was one slippery fucker.

Evening folks. I think I fall somewhere between Sunny & LFaT on the question of political strategy. If we think back to the Georgia crisis, Parliament was in recess, the events were dominating the news, Brown’s leadership had, a few weeks prior, just been undermined by his own foreign secretary, and there was a chance for Cameron to seize the headlines and look like a tough, serious leader. Clever stuff, even if I do think it was an overreaction.

That said, the Iran thing concerned me more. If it was more reflective of political strategy than of how a Tory government would’ve reacted in the same situation, we’ve really got to ask why. In less than 12 months, Cameron’s going to be Prime Minister; the election won’t be lost on foreign relations & he wouldn’t lose any ground by staking out a similar position to Brown/Milliband. Conversely, if that was really how his government would’ve responded to the events in Tehran, then I have genuine concerns. But as LFaT points out, we’ll see what happens when they get their feet under the table. I mean, how long did the ‘ethical foreign policy’ last?

@ Chicken Bait

As for the Tories ultra neoliberal international aid plans, frankly they should fill any anti poverty and social justice campaigner’s heart with dread. They basically read like a giant international PFI scheme:

Yup, but look at the shite job New labour have done with the CDC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7505527.stm
and things have got worse since then (see virtually every isue of Private eye for the past year and a half).
Looks like no end to the profiteering scum taking great swathes of the aid budget.

Chickenbait @8: The vouchers idea didn’t actually make it into the Conservative green paper on international development, but there was enough nonsense stuff to make me very worried about the negative effects a Conservative government might have on DfID especially.

The vouchers idea didn’t actually make it into the Conservative green paper on international development, but there was enough nonsense stuff to make me very worried about the negative effects a Conservative government might have on DfID especially.

Speaking of which, I linked to Paul’s piece on this topic in my original post, but it clearly didn’t survive the editing process. It can be found here, and is certainly worth a read: http://bit.ly/3c8eqQ

Hi Paul,

I just had a look at the Green Paper and on page 36 it says “We will consider funding insurance schemes, bursaries, or targeted vouchers for the poorest children to attend a school of their choice”, not ruled out yet it seems.

It’s a terrible document, seems far more focused on building a world in which markets can thrive than one capable of delivering a decent standard of living for its people. Same old neo-liberal voodoo economics that’s seen a huge increase in global inequality and poverty over the last 30 years. Not approved by me.

Chickenbait @15:

I take it all back – I’d not noted it as I read it, but heh, we all make mistakes. Well spotted, even though it’s still only at the consdering stage, while the plans for an X Factor singalong to decide who gets aid cash are apparently set in stone, as is the plan to set up a big new quango to do what the Public Accounts committee and the National Audit Office are already set up to do.

Anyway, looks like we’re singing from the same hymn sheet here.

Perhaps it time to stop having a viewpoint on every issue. Does it matter what we say or do on many issues? Do the leaders of any countries actually listen when we lecture them on human rights, poverty, corruption treatment of women, treatment of minorities etc. etc. The danger is that we lecture a country and then have to ask for their help.
In fact we may achieve more by not undertaking these frequent bouts of finger wagging at those regimes of whom we disapprove. Does anyone think that China will ever change their policies on Tibet because of comments by the UK ?

Perhaps the best thing we can do is to ensure every country receives the World Service and satellite TV from the BBC in their own language. The starting of the BBC Persian satellite TV service probaly did more for freedom in Iran than anything else.
If there are situations such as Jugoslavia in the early 90s we either provide all the resources or do not intervene at all. Do something so as to be seen doing something in order to appear morally upright, sympathetic and concerned, often brings trouble.

By creating a free, fair, technologically advanced,fashionable, affluent , healthy,tolerant democracy, other countries can look at us and see the benefitsof our system. It was the quality of life which the West Germans enjoyed which was shown on TV and was seen by east germans, which encouraged them to challenge the communist system.

I read somewhere last week that there is a hole in Tory foreign policy when it comes to Europe.

Found the link in relation to my comment above…

Hole in Tory foreign policy