Gordon Brown knew what he didn't want in foreign policy. He did not want Britain's national interest to be pursued through personal relationships. He did not want complex issues reduced to the easy language of the chat show host. In short, he didn't want to be like Tony Blair. That much is known, and the first fruits of this new approach are impressive. To watch the new Prime Minister frown as President Bush swung his golf buggy round and round in frat-boy style restored a sense of pride. Perhaps now Britain has a leader who feels no need to ingratiate himself with a man of toxic policies and limited intellect.
In this respect, Brown has crowned a successful first month in charge. He has yet, however, to define exactly what his foreign policy is. What, for example, is the role of "hard power" (military force) in achieving humanitarian and other laudable ends? How does the UK calibrate its relationships with nations and international institutions? These issues were well illustrated in an article in the Financial Times by John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN. Bolton, perhaps the most unapologetic of all Bush's neoconservatives, says that Brown must ultimately decide where his allegiances lie. A new EU constitution will, Bolton points out, grant an EU foreign minister strong powers. How would this affect the UK's ties with the US, particularly in intelligence-sharing?
This is a legitimate question, albeit from an unsavoury source. Lest anyone forget (particularly the Eurosceptical Brown), on the single most important issue of the past 50 years - Iraq - which ally got it wrong and which got it right? There is much to commend the foreign policy of Donald Rumsfeld's good ol' Old Europe.
In any case, the so-called special relationship has always been, to use the modern jargon, asymmetric. For US presidents, Britain's unwavering support has always been an optional bonus. For British premiers, notably Blair, it grew into a quasi-existential issue. For all Brown's cooler body language with Bush, the early signs are that on strategic issues he, too, will acquiesce whenever requested.
How else could his decision to allow the US to use the listening station at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire for its missile defence system be interpreted? It was not just the decision that disappointed, but the nature of its non-announcement. For a decision of such importance to have been taken on the sly shows cynicism for the political process and suggests the British poodle is alive and well. If, as Brown promises, parliament is being revitalised, this issue should be brought to the Commons for a full debate as soon as it reconvenes in the autumn.
Just as he is capable of infuriating, so Brown is also adept at invigorating. His studied distancing from Bush was followed by an impassioned speech to the UN, with calls on member governments, corporations and others to work harder to meet the eight development goals set for 2015. Exhortations do not in themselves produce change, but it was entirely appropriate for Brown to use his first outing in New York to set out his stall.
The big achievement of the UN in recent days was, however, Darfur. The agreement to send up to 20,000 mainly African soldiers to this part of Sudan is welcome. The key player in this was not (contrary to the spin) the UK or France, the co-sponsors of the motion, but China. In its support for Khartoum and its need for its oil, Beijing had until now blocked efforts to intervene. That the international community has finally come together may concentrate the minds of the Sudanese government and the various rebel groups in peace talks. When the new force, Unamid, is deployed in a year's time, it will have a mandate to defend aid agencies, which are doing a difficult job in impossible circumstances.
As so often, the agreement comes late in the day. Some 200,000 people have been killed over the past four years, largely at the hands of the Sudanese-backed Janjaweed militia. There is much cause for scepticism, but also some for hope. The deal over Sudan could mark the revival of the UN and the use of intelligent diplomacy. After the destruction wrought by the neocons, that would be a remarkable achievement.
Nessie comes to Cornwall
Back in 1933 it was the Daily Mail that wanted to bring a thrill from the deep to British breakfast tables. "Monster of Loch Ness is not a Legend but a Fact", it announced, launching months of excited coverage that left a mark which has only recently begun to fade. Today, inevitably, it is the Sun. "Shark mania grips Britain", it boasts, as it records the latest in its series of supposed sightings of a great white shark off Cornwall. As with the Mail story in 1933, this is not a first but already almost a hardy annual - there have been speculative stories along these lines in at least four of the past ten years. As with the Mail story in 1933, it has the great virtue - from the paper's point of view - that it is very difficult to disprove. But the Sun today has two things on its side that the Mail of the 1930s didn't. First, a great white will appear off Cornwall one day. They exist, they have been near enough to our waters and they are sufficiently free-roaming to make that a racing certainty. And second, there is the movie Jaws, with its enduring capacity to unsettle. When the Amity police chief Brody (played by Roy Scheider) first raised the alarm about a great white, he was mocked, but we soon saw him proved right, and in the most gory circumstances.
The Sun knows we know that and, whatever the merits of its fuzzy video clips, it knows that sooner or later the day will come when it can print the headline: "We told you so". Or better perhaps: "You're gonna need a bigger boat".
