What's the point of the G8?
Once again, we're supposed to be impressed at the sight of our world leaders bigging it up at a G8 summit.
Yet amid all the communiqués and preening, what do these international jamborees achieve? Zip.
Politicians like G8 summits because they think it makes them look important (cracking a joke with Barack) and decisive (deciding to abolish climate change) and in control (ditto global poverty). Diplomats like these summits because it's their job to.
But the rest of us should ask if the desire by our politicians and diplomats to "internationalise" problems by demanding global solutions, isn't simply a way for decision-makers to evade real accountability to real voters at home. Easier to listen to Silvio and co than the voters back home - who might want to give you a kicking.
Is it not slightly presumptuous for national leaders - given a specific job to do by their domestic electorates – to assume that they've a global calling?
Posted on 9 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell