|
|
 |
| |
| Jay takes on Meyer in the battle
of the ambassadors |
In a very undiplomatic row, former US ambassador
Sir Peter Jay has taken issue with former US ambassador Sir Christopher
Meyer
|
Sir Peter Jay
Sir Christopher Meyer
|
TWO former ambassadors to America – the plummest job in
the diplomatic world – are at loggerheads in a most undiplomatic
row over the war in Iraq.
While the reverberations from Sir Christopher Meyer’s tell-all
book, DC Confidential, about Tony Blair’s discussions with
George Bush before the war started, which included a stinging critique
of the conflict, are still ringing in the corridors of power, Meyer’s
predecessor, Sir Peter Jay, has leapt to Blair’s defence. He
praised the Prime Minister and the American president George W Bush
while at the same time pouring scorn on Meyer during an hour-long
lecture at Sulgrave Manor, the ancestral home of American president
George Washington in Sulgrave, near Banbury, Oxfordshire.
The Tudor manor holds the largest collection in the UK of Washington
memorabilia and material that shares the UK’s historic link
with the US.
In a wide ranging speech which touched on the war in Iraq, European
Union enlargement, the triumph of the Neo-Conservative right in
America, Sir Peter said the UK and USA had no choice but to go to
war – or see the United Nations fatally undermined.
He said: “The United States and Britain faced up to the responsibility
to stand up for the principles of 1945 and to discipline the violator.
I say thank God for a British Prime Minister who, whatever doubts
one may have had previously about his convictions and his courage
– I had plenty – showed on this occasion that he had both.
One or both of them may have paid a heavy price, at least from a
political point perspective. But Saddam Hussein is being tried for
his crimes; and the people of Iraq have voted for a free and democratic
constitution.”
Sir Peter describes himself as a left winger – even though
his views are not in keeping with current British left.
He said: “I grew up in and remain loyal to the non-Marxist
British left, the left of Attlee, Bevin and Gaitskell and still,
I think, the left of Gordon Brown.”
And he explained to his audience that he had decided, early on,
that the UK’s natural allies lay across the Atlantic, not across
the Channel.
“I first travelled to France at the age of 15 in 1952 I came
away a lifelong Eurosceptic,” he said.
“I first travelled to the US in 1966 and came away a life-long
Americophil.”
Sir Peter added he considered himself a Democrat – his first
impressions as a student in the States forged a sympathetic understanding
of the liberal left.
He continued: “It also left me with an impression of the conservative
right as strange, reactionary and potentially sinister.
“Since then I have followed with hope and periodic disappointment
the occasional Democrat restorations, under Carter and Clinton,
and with equivalent alarm and distaste the rather more frequent
successes of the American right under Nixon, Reagan and George W
Bush.”
Of Sir Christopher Meyers views, Sir Peter said: “Tony Blair
has been criticised this week by my successor-but-four in Washington,
Chris Meyer. Chris, if I understand him rightly, thinks that the
Prime Minister should have used the leverage of his indispensability
as the US only prominent ally to extract more favourable consideration
of British positions in the pre-war build up, perhaps even to have
postponed or derailed the whole affair.
“Chris is a professional diplomat; and it is perfectly natural
that he should think like that.
“That is what diplomats do. As Lord Salisbury said, they haggle
for marginal advantages wherever and whenever they are to be gained.
“But it is not what friends do. It is not what Franklin Roosevelt
did in 1940 and 1941. The essence of a friend is that he gives you
the benefit of the doubt and that, if you are prostrate, he stops
not to enquire how you will settle his bill, even if he does whisper
in your ear that you have been a bloody fool. But if your friendship
only comes out with the sun, his friendship will wither with the
next frost.”
And he saves his final words for what he would like the future to
hold for the European Union.
He does not want to see national sovereignty eroded at the expense
of the Union – but also says the best way forward for the EU
would be to forget trying to be a grand, federalist nation state.
Instead, he feels the membership of the EU should not be reliant
on geographical limitations.
He said: “Europe should only stop growing when there are no
more people who want to be part of an open network guaranteeing
human rights, democracy and the free movement of all the factors
of production supported by minimal governmental institutions and
absolutely no flags, anthems, armies, navies, currencies, President,
foreign minister and other symbols of 20th-century nationhood.”
Peter’s progress
SIR Peter Jay, the son of Heath and Hampstead Society life president
Peggy Jay, was appointed Ambassador to Washington by Labour Prime
Minster Jim Callaghan in 1977.
Previously he had been a writer and broadcaster, fronting the popular
ITV politics show Weekend World and working as the BBC’s economics
and business editor.
Sir Peter grew up in Hampstead and went to Byron House, the pre-prep
school for Highgate School, based in the village.
From there, he was sent to Winchester boarding school and then studied
Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Christ College Oxford.
He now lives in Oxford. |
|
Angelino's finest are put to the test
WE came across Angelino Wines, sandwiched between two colourful and
aggressively self-promoting Australian wine sellers, at Islington’s
London Wine Event at the end of October.
Its owner is Farrell Anglin, whose imagination was caught by a lecture
on the history of wine making at Southgate College.
FULL STORY
|
