No rest for Gordon Brown. We landed in London at 3.20am after a 14-hour flight from the G8 summit in Japan. Some of his exhausted staff are naturally taking a day off after spending two of the last four nights on a plane but the PM will soon be back at his desk, will chair a Cabinet meeting and then make a Commons statement about the summit.
The highlight of the return journey was a one-hour refuelling stop in Novosibirsk, Siberia. The fuel wasn't only for the plane, as the Russians laid on vodka and beer in the airport terminal and were very hospitable. Perhaps Brown's first meeting with the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Japan wasn't as frosty as we thought; on the flight out to Japan, we had to remain on the plane during refuelling.
Today we had to make a hasty exit when Silvio Berlusconi's plane landed and the Russians got ready for their next shift. I'm not sure Brown knows what to make of the flashy Italian PM, who bonded with Tony Blair but doesn't seem to be Gordon's kind of guy. At the G8, Berlusconi opposed sanctions against Zimbabwe and the next day announced that the summit had backed them, without blinking. I suspect Brown will say quite a lot about Zimbabwe when he makes his Commons statement.
Despite all the criticism of the G8 leaders' champagne and caviar dinner, the summit did achieve something on Zimbabwe that couldn't have been done by telephone diplomacy or at the United Nations. Brown insisted on tough action, rejecting a compromise proposed by Germany, and Russia came on board, not wanting to be isolated. Russia's switch could pave the way for UN sanctions against the Mugabe regime and a UN envoy to go to Zimbabwe to secure a political settlement based on the March elections. Brown probably won't get much credit for his Japanese trip at home. But he deserves some on Zimbabwe.
Gordon Brown is a lot like Mugabe:-
1) he does not like criticism and seeks to stifle it;
2) he got in after Tony Blair with no mandate from us;
3) he is systematically destroying our civil rights;
4) he is a control freak and is as ugly as Mugabe.
I guess, his stance on Zimbabwe now is one of pure envy, don't you think?
Posted by: George Takimnoso | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 04:12 PM
Mugabe is thought of as by some as a Resistance hero...Brown is the man whi is never there when difficulties arise.
Posted by: peter robinson | Thursday, 10 July 2008 at 04:22 PM