Charmed out of their minds

David Cameron probably didn’t need reminding while he was in China what fools intelligent people can be when they visit authoritarian regimes.

David Cameron probably didn’t need reminding while he was in China what fools intelligent people can be when they visit authoritarian regimes. ‘Useful idiots’, as Lenin didn’t say, they make allowances for dishonesty, even horrors, which they never would at home, express guilt for the past of their own countries, use words like ‘progress’ for the place they are briefly visiting, and accept at face-value hospitality and words which normal consideration would tell them were well-rehearsed and manipulative.

Patrick Wright, a journalist and historian, describes the three ‘missions’ to China in 1954 to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Communist victory. The first mission, a high-powered Labour Party group, headed by Clement Attlee and Aneurin Bevan, met Chou Enlai and had an audience with Mao. The second mission, a ‘cultural delegation’, included Hugh Casson, Paul Hogarth and Stanley Spencer, who produced a number of paintings and sketches.