A shift in foreign policy and a sad farewell to Frank..

Firstly some pictures from Reading this weekend. Altogether a brilliant night, although the DJ played too much house for my liking....

"You need to build coalitions that are lateral, which go beyond the bilateral blinkers of the normal partners" - Malloch-Brown

I must admit that this comment has endeared me anew to the Brown regime, and that the US and UK are no longer considered to be joined at the hip by the government can give us hope for a new, more impartial and hopefully more sympathetic and multilateral foreign policy. The appointment of Malloch-Brown, ex UN Deputy Secretary General and critic of the Iraq war, in itself makes a statement about his feelings on the situation there. The political commentators are not expecting him to make any real changes to the current policy in Iraq however, so have these measures been put in place to convince the public that had he been in power in 2003 I would not have gone to war...but now that it's happened, there's not a lot I can do. If this is the case, I think the effect of these symbolic appointments and indications of 'small shifts' will not appease the public for long. It seems obvious that these gestures are being engineered in order to try and play on people's anti-US/anti-Iraq feelings to ensure that should Brown hold a snap election early next year, he would be guaranteed votes. I would love to say that if he does not set a full withdrawal timetable before an election, I have faith that the public will not vote Labour next year, or the year after...but I can't and I don't. Although I believe such a move, if achieved cautiously and with full support to the Iraqi government and security forces, could secure his legacy, and his future as PM. We will just have to wait until September to find out what his next move will be.

Although it seems clear that Brown is not wishing to 'cosy up' to the European Union after taking a slight side-step in the relationship with the US, but wishes to foster better bilateral relations with countries such as France, Germany, India and (surprise surpise) China. Even as a pro-European, I can understand Brown's refusal to grant more foreign policy powers to the EU. Passing such powers over would castrate us in terms of remaining our own country. As far as I'm concerned the EU should be a cooperative body, not one that passes our powers of legitimation onto a body somewhere in Brussels. We should be able to have a say in our own foreign policy...even if this hasn't been the case in the past...we can hope for the future. However, this will limit our links with the EU, and if we are going to distance ourselves from the US at the same time, we must concentrate all our powers of negotiation on fostering good relations with Merkel, Sarkozi et al. I think Brown may be making a very sensible move here. Keeping links with America, whilst making it clear that they will not be 'inseparable', thus paving the way for better links with the big European powers. Although the man is incredibly intelligent, so I am not surprised. For now, I will remain suspicious, but ever hopeful that Brown will prove to me that he is a Prime Minister with integrity.

The other news of the weekend was the death of the frankly brilliant (see what I did there) actor, Mike Reid, aka. Frank Butcher. Never again will he turn up on Pat's doorstep in nothing but his birthday suit and a flashing, spinning bow tie. R.I.P. Mike and forever will your memory live on.

Finally, I have now completely 100% decided (I hope!) on my dissitation topic. Much more appropriate, more interesting etc. So now the research begins...

Live Earth, Alastair Campbell and the distinct absence of Gordon Brown?

The Live Earth debate could go on forever, although at the end of the day I think it could be universally agreed that even if a nice idea with good intentions from the ever-green Al Gore, it was completely mismanaged and left itself wide open to criticism from environmentalists, the media and everyday cynics alike. The point that has been milling around my head since last Saturday is, however, with the incredible criticism that I myself was spouting all weekend, we seem to forget that every concert we go to wastes energy. Every single one of the now hundreds of festivals that go on in Britain every summer, let alone the thousands and millions that occur all over the world, waste energy. Obviously I am not excusing the hypocrisy of an event preaching about carbon emissions including many acts whose carbon footprints are 100 if not 1000 times that of an average person. BUT it's very easy to distance ourselves from it and criticise rather than taking a lesson from it, that we should all be paying more attention to events like that, which we all attend whilst taking for granted the damage it will cause to the environment. Those in glass houses etc.

However, as I said, the criticisms for the Live Earth gig are fair and valid, and realistically it probably did much more for the album sales of the artists involved than it did for motivating people to act, in a substantial and sustained way, towards cutting back carbon emissions. The UN I believe were involved in the gigs held in Shanghai, Johannesberg and Rio, as I think these are the places where it was actually important to get the message across to everyday people, as they may not be bombarded with it by the media everyday as we, undeniably, are in the West. Perhaps rallying the people in those countries was significant in trying to spread the message about climate change. However, it is obvious that these countries, particularly in the case of Brazil and China, cannot develop, at least not in the way we have developed, without an inevitable cost to Planet Earth. And unfortunately until we show China another (affordable) way it can try and spread vital resources to its ever increasing population or those foreign investors who are making a pretty penny out of this developing economic superpower start investing their money ethically, and in environmentally friendly methods of energy creation, there is little hope of the message sticking. At the end of the day, Live Earth was a nice idea. When it came to Gore, it probably seemed like the most palatable way of trying to get the message across to the general public. However, what on earth the man was thinking when instead of putting American acts on in their own home towns, he flew them to the UK, and using acts, such as Madonna, who's carbon footprints are frankly incredible (not in a good way of course), is beyond me. Right, with that I will stop. For ranting is boring and any vaguely intelligent human being will have seen straight through the commercialisation of the whole thing to the utter hypocrisy underlying it. I mean, even the Daily Mail saw it.

The next issue of the week I feel was the release of Alastair Campbell's diaries. He is a man who has been incredibly villainised in the press, blamed for the death of Dr David Kelly, accused of creating the entire '45 minutes' fiasco, and generally spinning a great big web of lies to the public for the 6 years he spent as Tony Blair's press secretary. So it was with great interest that I sat down to watch BBC 2's serialisation of his diaries. Expecting to hate the man, somehow I felt myself warming to him (if only ever so slightly) as his diaries had an incredible honesty to them, which I always admire. On reflection the ommissions are much more significant than the events he has included and the section on Diana felt rather frivolous and unimportant - although, what are diaries if not self-indulgent I suppose. He was a man who was as equally hating of others as he was hated, and for whom sleaze was the bread and butter of his working life. But, as he himself has said, he was employed to make the Labour party look good. And this involved telling a lot of porkies. I will stop short of saying I ever felt sorry for the man, he was completely responsible for putting himself in that position. And the question is always going to be, was he wholly unresponsible for the inclusion of the '45 minute' phrase in the Iraq dossier, and whatever the answer, should he have been so quick to scapegoat Kelly in a way that led so tragically to his death? He admits himself he was keen to pass the buck, a spin doctor will always want to place the blame as far as possible from his own doorstep, but was this right? I'm sure the question will plague him for the rest of his life as well.

In other thoughts, where oh where is Gordon Brown? I noticed him once on the news this week with (hurrah!) the announcement that they will have to reasses the issue of Super Casinos, which Tony Blair had been rather overly enamoured with. But apart from that he seems markedly absent. I suppose it is just because I am so used to being party to Tony Blair's every move, with his celebrity status, that it is hard getting used to the media's inattentive attitude towards 'boring Brown'. In a way it is good, but I'd quite like to know what the man's up to. I feel he is planning something big for the Queen's speech. Iraq withdrawal timetable? Let's hope so.

Well, there's a first time for everything...

Last night saw my second trip to Scandals since coming home, and had a really good (and surprisingly cheap) night! Only lowlights were the spillage of Gaskin's beer all over my new dress as he attempted to 'top up' my cider with cheap lager. Ugh. That and some overly amorous chavs and a possibly well meaning Irish man who picked me up at the bar and in the process managed to put his hands in inappropriate places. Wearing of dresses has its drawbacks. Really appreciating how good things have been with friends and the general calm and serenity that seems to have settled over the south coast, for now at least!!

Unfortunately I still haven't managed to find a job, which is pretty dire and the bank balance is slowly getting further and further into the red. Ah well, as my mother says, at least when you don't have any money you don't have to worry about anyone stealing it! (She had an incident with a mysterious Tesco Online bill taken out of her account a while back, and has been rather wary ever since). I think this summer may well be survived with odd jobs at my parents' workplace, selling all my worldly belongings on ebay, and stealing and cashing in everyone's unwanted pennies.

However, on the bright side, I do still have my BBC placement to look forward to, although I need to be careful to be doing/saying the right things at all times. Three days is a rather limited time to make an impression, and that is exactly what I plan to do! What with all the recent talk of postgraduate studies and how I'm going to fund them, I've failed to start panicking (until today) about the one thing that I need to get over with first - the dreaded dissitation. I have a general theme that I want to go on. Africa. Development. Globalisation. But seeing as I'm not much of an economist, I'm worried it will be quite worthless at the end of it. So maybe some sort of rethink is necessary.

Right, I think that's OK for my first post, I'm sure these will get more interesting with time. Ben (big brother) is coming back from Ibiza today to DJ some posh wedding, will be nice to see him before he leaves again for another 2 and a half months! Personally I don't understand his love of the party isle, but I guess anything's better than our great English 'summer'. Can't wait to get away myself, but not being much of a sun/dance music worshipper I think something calm and cultural will suit me just fine, Eastern Europe somewhere I reckon. As a 20 year old who has only ever seen France, I am desperate to see more of the world, I feel a strange sense of urgency about the whole thing. So fingers crossed I can make some money somehow!

Rachael x

PS. Watched Little Miss Sunshine this afternoon. What a brilliant film that is. Love Toni Collette. And it has Sufjan in the soundtrack, and a bit of Sufjan is always good. Really brings home how ridiculous the American beauty pageant scene is, as outdated as fox hunting if you ask me, and almost as brutal for those poor girls.