Tuesday 3 March 2015

Competition! William for Beijing - Who for Moscow in May?

The Royal Family are just brilliant for diplomacy and soft-power exercises generally.   The "Windsor"  brand catalogue offers such a nicely graded range of options - a perfect choice available for all occasions - and other countries are left floundering in their wake.   From the lightweight-but-dutiful 'Edward', the man-of-the-world, know-what-you-mean-squire 'Andrew', the robust and heavy-duty 'Anne', the lucky-dip, maybe-you'll-get-a memorable-gaffe 'Phillip', to the seriously A-list 'Harry', the only-if-you've-been-very-good 'Kate', the ocean-going, this-is-really-important 'Wills', the president-trumping 'Charles', and the earthquake-grade, once-in-a-lifetime 'Her Britannic Majesty'.

They all come in uniform and/or on horseback if desirable; speak French; fly themselves in (some even at the controls of a helicopter, which is no mean feat); and don't require two battalions of large grey-suited men wearing shades and microphones to be placed between themselves and the adoring crowds.

Yes, with the occasional fleeting exception like Obama six years ago or Mandela in the 1990's, there's really no-one else to touch them.

Now: here's the challenge.  Wills is doing great business in China just now but another, more sensitive gig looms.  Yes folks, 9 May 2015 is Moscow Victory Day Parade and it's a big'un, the 70th anniversary, no expense spared.  There will be T-34's on show!  And they've already got acceptances from, oooh, the President of, errr, Serbia and, hmmm, the President of Vietnam and  ....  yes, Fat-boy Kim himself, Jong Un the wrong'un!

But somehow, little Volodya's party is not yet complete.  After all, he went to Normandy in 2014 and he really, really feels everyone should do him the honour of paying a return visit - not just the sub-communist nobodies.   Egad! - a tough decision for Whitehall, what with all the posturing over Ukraine: and given the General Election two days before, there's the possibility we won't even have a proper Prime Minister!

So, compo time:
  1. who should we send?
  2. who will we send? 
Doesn't need to be from the Windsor collection, of course - there's more than one way of sending a soft-power message.  Could be Neil Kinnock, for example, or Keith Vaz.  No prizes for guessing our Ambassador to Moscow - let's focus on the most senior marquee Brit(s) in an official capacity; and there will be awards for getting this right.

I'm saying: 

1.  HMQ, on condition that Crimea is relinquished beforehand
2.  Prince Charles in full rig, on condition that Fat-Boy is debarred

Have at it, C@W!

ND

16 comments:

Bill Quango MP said...

Prince Philip.
A Royal Navy man. In combat in the med in WW2. Was under fire more than once.
Just the right level of Royal to be acceptable to Vlad.
And few here will care if he goes or not.

A sound choice.

Jer said...

BQ - I believe Prince Phillip is on record as castigating the Soviets for "killing half my family". May have been an expletive in there too.

The Soviet Union won WWII at huge cost to themselves, and that should trump current petty politicking.

We should send Charles. We will send Lord Hague of little Upham, or Tony - yes, send Tony! Tuck into that sushi Tony!

Anonymous said...

We should send Ed Balls, and leave him there.

Bill Quango MP said...

send ge

AndrewZ said...

We should send Russell Brand so he can tell them all about the joys of, like, communism and stuff.

In reality the current government will have to take the decision on whom to send otherwise the arrangements won’t be made in time. They won’t want to provoke a diplomatic incident by boycotting the event or sending a complete nobody, but they won’t want to send anyone too high-profile like a major royal in case that’s seen as an endorsement of Putin. So it will probably be Philip Hammond, the current Foreign Secretary, because his attendance can be presented as regular diplomatic business with no special meaning.

BE said...

Camilla. She'd eat Putin for lunch.

Jan said...

No-nonsense Anne gets my vote. She'll tell him to his face what's what and he will be a bit scared....

Bill Quango MP said...

George Galloway,
He's already on the dictator's payroll so he won't make any kind of negative comment re the Ukraine.

And his going can either be endorsed or denied by the next government. As they see fit.

Malcolm Tucker said...

Show them we're serious.
Send Ant and Dec

CityUnslicker said...

Send Farage, they are mates anyway allegedly...

Steven_L said...

1) Blair
2) Mandy

Anonymous said...

Philip would be good, he can visit the Romanov memorials - they were reburied with much pomp some time ago.

But knowing Cameron he'll send some under-secretary - a deliberate insult - and Philip Hammond will attend the remembrances in Kiev.

Suffragent said...

Who should we send
Lest we Forget. This is the perfect opportunity for some some grown up people to pull us back from these petty squabbles.
Who will we send
Nobody of any standing as our childish, sulking politicos wont allow it and their toooo busy getting their lies straight for the election.
Who would I like to send
The whole government with a letter saying
"we believe these socialist w&%¤#rs belong to you. Can you please keep them until after the election so we can get our country back in order"

Suffragent said...

Galloway will be there of course and I hope Nige goes. Its the right thing to do. Forget the PC brigade. I once went to meeting with German clients on remembrance day. I took extra poppies and asked that I could leave the meeting for a few minutes before eleven. When I explained it was in respect for the fallen and in the hope it doesn't happen again, we ALL sat in silence. It wasn't a cheap sales pitch and they are still clients to the company I worked for and good friends of mine.

L fairfax said...

I vote for Russell Brand again.

Anonymous said...

Owen Jones
or
Polly Toynbee
or
Len McCluskey
or
Caroline Ashton
or
Peter Hain

Surprisingly, any of these would be far more left wing than the former KGB, former politburo member, former member of the communist party, and current leader of the rump of the USSR.