David Cameron really needs to face up to the fact that so far he has proved not much better at foreign policy than he has at winning elections. In fact, it might be in Britain’s interest if the poor fellow’s passport was simply taken away. The latest blunder came in Pakistan. Asked whether Britain could help resolve the long dispute over Kashmir, he (wisely) said that the UK should not take a “leading role” in such efforts, but then added:
“As with so many of the world’s problems, we are responsible for the issue in the first place.”
“So many”? Some, undeniably, but that extra level of grovel seems unnecessary.
The Daily Telegraph wades in here, concluding with this lethal jab:
[Cameron] could learn something from his predecessor in No 10. On a visit to Africa several years ago, Gordon Brown responded to an attack on Britain by Thabo Mbeki, then South Africa’s president, by declaring that “the days of Britain having to apologise for its colonial history are over”, and that “we should celebrate much of our past, rather than apologise for it”. We agree. Our past is by no means perfect, but it ill behoves the Prime Minister to lay so many of the world’s ills at our own door.
Quite.
I’d add that behavior like this, and the underlying set of beliefs that it reveals, only reinforce the need to treat Mr. Cameron’s recent criticisms of state-sponsored multiculturalism with a great deal of caution. He can talk the talk, but as for whether he’ll actually change anything, we’ll have to see…