From time to time, the parliamentary lobby journalists invite us to admire a particular politician. Minister X or shadow minister Y is suddenly presented as quite intensely able etc. For some time, Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary, has occupied this enviable position. Has anyone any idea why? Obviously he is less mad and vain than his father, but so is almost everyone in the world. Besides, he appears entirely to lack his father’s charm and eloquence. If he were merely boring, though, one would have no complaint against him, but I think it is time to look harder at what DFID does under his stewardship. The rise of the department, often at the expense of the Foreign Office, has proved politically useful because the fact that it is devoted to aid makes people think that it acts benevolently without any political agenda. In reality, there is nothing more political in the world than aid, and it is often the chosen method of propping up an unpleasant regime. Mr Benn is the lead spokesman on Darfur, lulling people into thinking that the only problem is the logistics of getting emergency aid through to suffering people. In reality, the people of Darfur suffer because of the oppression of the Islamist government in Khartoum, and Mr Benn is a leading apologist for that government. He appears in the media to explain that the Darfur peace agreement is just fine, and it is the fault of the ‘rebels’ that it is not being implemented. Meanwhile, more than 90 per cent of the violence is perpetrated by the Janjaweed and other proxies of Khartoum, and people continue to die because people like Mr Benn resist an effective international intervention force. David Cameron has interested himself in the subject of Darfur. The sooner he exposes the government on this subject, the better.
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