POLITICS

If Dudley Fishburn wants power, he should consider a career as a Eurocrat

BORIS JOHNSON

Dudley Fishburn used to be Harvard's representative in London, and agreed to interview me for a place at that university when I was 18. He must have given me a reasonably good reference, and I have ever since had the highest respect for his insight. If Dudley Fishburn says there is no point in being an MP, because there is 'not enough to do', the chances are he is on to some- thing.

A man as perceptive as that, though, must also have worked out why Parliament has lost so much attraction for anyone who hungers to wield influence over his fellow man. If Dudley Fishburn wants power, he must know where to go. It is not too late for him, at the age of 49, to parachute him- self into the organisation that has done so much to emasculate MPs like himself. Dud- ley Fishburn should go on a reconnaissance trip to Brussels. I speak with some authori- ty, since I did this recently, for the first time in more than a year.

lithe disillusioned Tory took with him a kind of Geiger counter with which to detect power, the machine would be in a state of permanent arousal. It would gibber throughout the 'Euroville' sector of the Belgian capital: in the fish restaurants and among the Japanese and Americans check- ing out of the Europa hotel. It would squeak as Dudley Fishburn passed the new Euro-parliament building. Only a year ago, much of this consisted of stark concrete lift shafts, like the towers of San Gimignano. Now it is a shining arc of glass and steel, and still the physical and symbolic construc- tion work goes on.

The machine would yelp as he passed the new Justus Lipsius building, seemingly the size of the Pentagon and the colour of pink potatoes, which is intended to house the meetings of ministers from two dozen countries. And if Dudley Fishburn took his power-detecting gizmo to the 12th floor of the Breydel building, where the European commissioners have their offices, the thing would probably seize up.

Here is power, Mr Fishburn. Here are the men and women with a big idea, a huge idea; and not just that, but the means to give it effect. Here, as anybody knows, any relatively senior official can draft and push through instant law, on everything from the composition of drinking water to the defini- tion of female pyjamas, which has direct effect on 380 million people. If Mr Fish- burn seeks power, then one feels that he would do better to avoid Barings Bank, and try to enter the Commission, preferably at A3 or A2 grade.

It is true that the mood in Brussels is a little sotto just now. The monetary union boffins are downcast by the fact that no one can agree even on the name for the wretched Euro-coin due to be minted by 2003. Though 'au' appears in the Maas- tricht Treaty, it sounds apparently too much like the German word for a cow. This is leaving M. Yves Thibault de Silguy, the French commissioner for monetary affairs, canvassing desperate alternatives such as `franken', 'ducat' and 'euro'. Jacques San- ter, the new president (or Jacques Sancerre as he is known in honour of his lunch-time libations) does not provide the evangelical leadership of M. Debts.

And it is also partly true that the advent of the Gaullist Jacques Chirac as President of France has changed the geometry of Europe, to the apparent disadvantage of the Federalists. 'Chirac is a Pompidolian,' says one senior commission official. By that he means that Chirac shares the perception of Georges Pompidou, the Frenchman who allowed Britain into the EC, that the British are a necessary counterpoise to the Germans; that Europe should be a triangle, not a Paris-Bonn axis. Downing Street is not entirely wrong to be encouraged by the overtures between the Foreign Office and the Quai d'Orsay; for German noses are indeed being put out of joint.

The present ambassador in Paris [Sir Christopher Mallaby] is working hard to persuade the French that the British way of life is best,' says one clever and civilised German. 'We will see if it works,' he adds, grumpily. Perhaps there is indeed the mak- ings of a Franco-British alliance, to ensure that any further reforms of the Community do not go too far in the federalist direction.

'This chair was designed by computer. As you can see, the computer is very comfortable.' Commission officials, moreover, will tell Mr Fishburn that they do not have any great plans for the 1997 revisions of Maas- tricht. At this point the Fishburn power- °meter should bleep away in electronic protest at their dissimulations. Not every- one believes Brussels is waning.

Perhaps the most underrated political event of the last week was the decision by the Labour Party to take the fire into the enemy camp: not to try to mimic the Euw- scepticism of the Tories, but to come ouf in favour of integration, and to launch an aggressive campaign, led by Robin Cook, to win the Labour grassroots round to Brus- sels. Labour has decided to go into the next election as the party of Europe, painting the Tories as xenophobes who are trifling with the interests of the nation.

It may be that this will cost them votes, and the Tories certainly hope as much. But Labour evidently calculates that there is a cowardly strain in the Euro-scepticism of the British public. Mr Blair must reckon that, in the end, we will be overwhelmed by funk at the thought of being left out. In the end, Blair believes the British will heed the dreadful warnings to be heard in Brussels about being excluded from the single cur- rency; and they are dreadful. As one Ger- man puts it: 'If Britain wants to have a future in the world, you must be at the heart of Europe. Otherwise you will be Switzerland in the rainy north Atlantic.'

And even if there is not a great leap for- ward in the next five or six years — and I would still put money on some countries, at least, going ahead to adopt the single cur- rency; even if Labour does not win the next election; even then, I think, it would still be worth Dudley Fishburn's while, if he wants power, to consider a career as a Eurocrat.

In Wednesday's newspaper alone, we read how European law has scythed down Norman Tebbit's attempts to restrict unfair dismissal claims, with expensive conse- quences for British industry. We read how a European directive on package holidays has won two women £.3,000 in damages after their backs were stroked by Tunisian waiters. Imagine being the man who framed that directive! That is power. Think of it, Mr Fishburn.

Boris Johnson is assistant editor of the Daily Telegraph.