Brown’s politicking on the world stage

No-one thought that Gordon Brown would be much of a statesman but, even so, it’s still surprising just how clumsy his efforts in India and China have been.  His speeches may have contained words such as “co-operation” but the substance of them has been self-serving and – as the Spectator’s Fraser Nelson has pointed-out – domineering.  Take the talk that Brown delivered to business leaders in Delhi today, in which he claimed that the International Monetary Fund needs to be reformed and given a new “early warning” power so that it can stave off crises such as Northern Rock.  In other words: Northern Rock was the fault of international organisations and nothing to do with the British Government.  Buck-passing now has a truly global flavour…