Lord Dave launches the gunboats for his big foreign policy speech
Lord Dave is presumably now very used to the atmosphere in the House of Lords. Red benches, good lunches, convivial etc. It was therefore slightly disconcerting to see him against the cold grey backdrop of the Orwellian-sounding “National Cyber Security Centre”.
Not that there is anything cold or grey about the Foreign Secretary’s complexion nowadays; a carroty hue that lands somewhere between Gemma Collins and a glass of Fanta. It is not only British trade interests that have benefited from Lord Dave’s round-the-world trips.
Alas, the audio was less than world-beating. The Foreign Secretary’s microphone kept cutting out, leaving him mouthing away like a silent movie star or a goldfish in a suit. Every time he sputtered out, a sort of clattering noise cut in, as if the sound engineer was putting the bins out. It sounded less like he’d been hacked by China and more like he’d hired Frank Spencer as an audio technician. Nothing says “global Britain” like a series of technological cock-ups.
Even more reassuringly, reporters and civil servants arriving for Lord Dave’s first major foreign policy speech to a British audience were told that the security code for the doors was “1234”. Perhaps China managed to hack the MoD database the other day by trying a few variations of “password2024”.
When he was actually audible, we were treated to some classic Cameronisms. The story of him chipping off a bit of the Berlin Wall to take back to Chipping Norton got another airing. Also in Lord Dave’s memory-palace was his recollection of launching the 2010 manifesto in Battersea Power Station. “It was a derelict building left crumbling for decades”, he told us in an extended reverse metaphor for what’s happened to the Conservative Party during that time. Again the microphone sputtered, but poor Dave trudged on.
He invoked some of his predecessors in the role: “Entering my office, I pass portraits.” As, inevitably, his term of office looks limited, this seemed an attempt to position himself among the greats. “Bevin and Eden, Grey and Salisbury, Canning and Castlereagh” were all mentioned. There was nothing for Liz Truss.
Technical gaffes aside, what we could hear of the speech put the Foreign Secretary more in the tradition of Palmerston than the peaceniks: continuing arms sales to Israel, talk of a “harder edge” on defence and foreign policy. Of course, Palmerston actually had a few gunboats to send but that was merely a side issue to Lord Dave.
Eventually we reached the lobby questions, and in true Palmerstonian style, Lord Dave deployed the gunboats and fixed them squarely on Dover. “What does this tell us about the party she’s joining?” he asked, of Tory-turned-Labour MP Natalie Elphicke. “In life, if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.”
It was a reminder that Lord Dave is one of the few frontbenchers left who can speak with any real conviction. With a nasal knight looking set to be our next prime minister, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine the bronzed baron as leader of the opposition once again.
