Thursday, August 28, 2008

Miliband Gives Schoolboy History Lesson

After going AWOL over Georgia, foreign secretary and Blair-apparent, David Miliband, popped up in the Ukraine, looking every inch the schoolboy, to give a major foreign policy speech - to a bunch of Ukrainian students in a classroom.

Just what his media managers were thinking about beggars belief. This was supposed to be sabre rattling and setting out the stall for UK foreign policy, picked up by the world media. Instead he just looked rather silly.

Rattling the old Cold War rhetoric is not the way to improve east-west relations and giving a schoolboy Cold War history lesson is not the way to do it. 

Miliband should listen to Robert Skidelsky writing in today's Times and stop playing with fire:

"If politicians, including our own, want a new Cold War, they will get one. But the fault will lie as much with us as Russia."

After a performance like that, the heir-to-Blair should stick to his day job.

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