CITY AND SUBURBAN
Why do ministers go to the summit?
Because it is there
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
Whether the front end of a politician contributes more to greenhouse gases than the back end of a cow can be tested next week in Houston, Texas, at what is still called the world economic summit meet- ing. Economics being a dismal science, the world leaders will be happier talking on about climatic change, along with tropical forests, bio-diversity, terrorism and drugs. Motherhood and apple-pie they can hold in reserve. Coming back to economics, they can be expected to agree that they are doing all right, except for inflation, that Russia's economic problems merit careful study, and that if the United States and Europe cannot settle their differences over protecting their farmers, that would be a serious pity. The British team is headed by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Foreign Secretary, all of whom will join the rigmarole of unscripted dinners and bi- lateral breakfasts. We have now had these summits for 16 years. In the early days they appealed to such figures as President Jim- my Carter, who hoped that international amity would spare him the consequences of his economic policy. (Fat chance.) Now they are not a time, as a ministerial bag-carrier was primly explaining this week, for operational decisions. They are just part of the statesman's year, easier to start than to stop, and every year brings more like them. In London this week, an eruption of tents in the Royal Parks provides another summit, Nato's, with a press centre. No one ever learned anything worth knowing in a press centre. I begin to think that goes for summits, too.
Previous page
