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- [00:01]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and may I extend a very warm welcome to you, to this public lecture. Warm welcome both from the LSE and indeed from the joint organizers of this public lecture, which are the LSE with the Foreign Policy Centre. My name is Dr. Anne Lane and I'm not employed by the LSE in fact, but I'm employed by the institution across the road here at King's College London. And it's my special pleasure this evening to welcome this evening's speaker, Lord Treasman, who is currently Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. By way of background, it would not be out of place for me to mention that Lord Treasman has extensive experience in the trade union movement as well as the business world and also as an academic. He's been a member of the Labour Party since He was just 16 and a lifelong trade unionist as well, serving the party as general secretary between 2001 and 2003 and the union movement as General Secretary of the association of university teachers between 1993 and 2001. He has held a range of academic appointments and is currently Visiting Fellow in Economics at Cambridge University as well as being Visiting Fellow in Government at this institution. His subject this evening is Public Diplomacy, Steps to the Future, which of course is forming part of his present portfolio at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Public diplomacy, as we know, is an area of diplomatic practice, very much a reflection of the current transformation that is going on of diplomatic practice and procedures right across the developing and the developed world, as well as an area of government strategies. It's touching on this debate about the merging of hard and soft power methods of operation. It touches also on this vexed question of choice and purpose in foreign policy, particularly where foreign policy is formed by interests as well as values. So, Lord Treseman, if I may ask you to invite you warmly to address this this evening. Thank you very much.
- [02:09]
B
Ladies and gentlemen and your Excellencies. I see a number of friends from the London missions here this evening. I want to thank you very much for coming this evening and I'd also like to thank you, Dr. Lane. Dr. Lane has a quite remarkable CV. He's one of the world's leading thinkers on the former Yugoslavia and I'm very happy to say is now working also on the development of of foreign policy. I very much look forward to your work, Dr. Lane, over this next period as well. Many of the faces in this room are the faces of people I recognize and know. Important partners in our work on public diplomacy and important partners as diplomats. And I Look forward to our future cooperation for the whole of the future. Others are new faces and I welcome all of you because tonight I want to set out how diplomacy as the Foreign Office has conducted it for centuries has changed, in my view, beyond recognition from the days of Palmerston and Lord Grey, Anthony Eden, or even more recently, Lord Carrington. I'm honoured to be speaking here at the LSE tonight. And it's fitting. The LSE's motto is to Know the Causes of Things, which captures the essence of the College's work and it's an equally good starting point for an analysis of diplomacy. Diplomats are deliverers of influence. They want to be the cause of things, whether it is peace or trade or alliances or the protection of of our nationals or simply greater understanding between countries and peoples. As understanding is itself the foundation of agreement. Their successes at delivering influence determines whether the government can deliver our foreign policy objectives and ultimately a safe, just and prosperous world. And as Lord Carter, and I shall be referring to Pat Carter, the author of a very important document on public diplomacy for us, as Lord Carter observed, where influence was once the preserve of elites, diplomats meeting ministers in gilded ministries and the exchange of formal written notes, it is now diverse and dispersed. The influence of the mass market, the power of pressure groups, the media and the Internet, among other things, has led us to rethink diplomacy and how we deliver influence where it will have the most impact. Where we once needed to convince a handful of people in order to serve our country's interests, we must now convince millions. We still talk to ministers and officials, opinion formers and experts, of course, that classic diplomacy continues. But alongside that, we now talk direct to the peoples of other countries in what we call public diplomacy. And as some of you may know, about 18 months ago, as I said, Patrick Carter published a report on the UK's public diplomacy work. It led to the formation of a Public Diplomacy Board and Chris Powell is the Vice Chair of that Board. I'm delighted is here this evening as well. Pat examined whether we are closely enough focused on how best to deliver influence to the mass market of global public opinion. Did we understand to return to the motto of this institution, the causes of things? The logic of public diplomacy in the past went something like this. If foreigners have a warm feeling about Britain, they are more likely to feel similarly about our role in the world. So the effort pandered to the traditional comfortable view of what the UK is London. Red buses and postboxes, black cabs, shortbread, Scotch whisky, cream teas, Shakespeare. Over time, it developed to a more modern image of Britain as a dynamic and innovative society, society full of talent. But actually the objective was still exactly the same. And what was the result? A study by Simon Anholt, who is another independent member of the Public Diplomacy Board on how nations were perceived by others shows us that foreigners still tend to think of us and view us as being efficient, inventive, scientific, cold and unemotional. And it tells us nothing about whether Shakespeare lovers or admirers of Damien Hirst think our role in the world is valuable or credible. It tells us nothing at all about that. And so, even with all of the resources I feel are at my disposal in the public diplomacy area, the bright, innovative partners from the media, from diplomacy, from the British Council, from Wilton Park, I know I cannot substantially change how the world views the United Kingdom. In the face of millions of channels of information that bombard the global public every day, we would simply be shouting in the wind in order to try and effect change that way. So what is it that we have changed? We have refocused our effort on talking about the issues that we care about directly with the people in the countries we are trying to influence. And we don't just explain our policy. That itself would not work either. We debate it, we encourage other people to debate it, we engage with people who may agree with us or they may passionately disagree with us. In short, we have moved away from the impossible and unmeasurable goal of trying to change how people think about the UK to engaging people in the defining issues of our times. And there are very many examples of this. And I just want to, if I may look at 3, the FCO does an enormous amount to counter the threat of terrorism. Yes, of course, we talk to other governments, we negotiate cooperation agreements, we provide support and expertise, ensure our law enforcement agencies can work together. Not my phone, I don't think, never can tell. But we also want to understand and change the causes of terrorism. So our embassies and high commissions work with those groups who may be susceptible to the terrorists narrative. We examine why terrorists are effective with some people, and we use our own messages to try to overcome the narrative of hate. A key part of that is to break down the false message that we are faced with a clash of civilizations, that in some sense Britain is an enemy of the Muslim world. We reject, and I personally completely reject the notion of the clash of civilizations and defend vigorously the reality that British Muslims are integral to British society, are not and must not be marginalized. So the Foreign Office team does a number of things. It works for example with the organizers of the Hajj. It provides medical support and other assistance to the 25,000 British pilgrims who undertake Hajj. We work too, with community groups in the United Kingdom and overseas, with schools and madrasas, with those who share our vision and those who don't. Because agreement and understanding is often hard won in Afghanistan, our battle with the Taliban is as much one of ideas as it is one of arms. We want Afghans to be persuaded that the democratic process that they voted for in very, very large numbers is the best future for their country. The Taliban want a repressive and cruel society based, in my view, on a warped worldview and equally warped interpretation of Islam in Afghanistan. The BBC Pashtu Service, part of the World Service, funded by the FCO but acting with complete editorial independence of the fco, is a vital tool in that process and crucially reaches Helmand, where our armed forces have to face Taliban fighters through public diplomacy. We hope to make their job easier by making it harder for the Taliban to find safe haven. Take climate change as an example. The pressure for action came from individuals across the planet changing their behaviour and demanding that governments also change their behaviour. We are working to maintain that pressure, influencing the debate. For example, one of our diplomatic posts is planning a competition on YouTube for a short film on climate change from the perspective of youth. They will then produce a DVD of the winning entries and circulate this to business leaders for whom the youth market is vitally important. Will it have an impact? I think it will. Last week the Foreign Secretary led a debate in the Security Council in New York on climate security for the first time that the subject had been discussed in the Security Council. Our efforts and those of like minded groups who also work directly with the public have created the pressure on governments to take the issue seriously. Classic and public diplomacy, in that case, working best together. And that brings me to another point. The new public diplomacy relies as much on alliances and cooperation as it does on classic diplomacy. But these alliances can no longer just be with governments. They're with pressure groups. They're with charities, businesses, human rights organizations, communities, religious groups, with the media and countless others who want to achieve the same thing that we do. Make Poverty History brought together many disparate groups who shared a common goal and drew strength and created their ideas from their different backgrounds and their diverse supporters. The result was a broad based global movement of incredible power and influence. When you think on it, we shared many of those goals and we worked with them to get the commitment from the G8 during our presidency of the G8 in 2005. Of course, much of what we do will not involve Bono or world leaders or will not make on occasions any news, but we determined it should make a difference. The other example is take our work on social rights and particularly particularly an issue like forced marriage. In Pakistan, a 12 part radio drama was broadcast on the BBC World Services Urdu service and relayed on Pakistani FM stations. It chronicled the life of an ordinary Pakistani family in an area with strong links to the United Kingdom. The storylines covered forced marriage, immigration, human human rights and drug trafficking. And it followed up with a public debate through the radio phone in, through seminars and on the Internet site. Or in Uganda and Ethiopia, where the British Council organised a project to look at diversity issues facing people and organizations in those countries. A cross section of people, including the government's Minister of Gender, were invited to contribute research within three months of the publication of the resulting report. That report and the subsequent public debate which was stimulated have contributed to the adoption of Uganda's Equal Opportunities Act. It had changed public understanding and desire for change in that area. And where does this leave the other traditional tools of public public diplomacy? Education, exchanges, the arts and culture. Of course, we'll continue to operate those programmes. The Chevening scholarships offer access to the United Kingdom's universities for candidates from right across the globe who we think will be among the important opinion leaders in their countries in future. And indeed, I suspect there may be some here tonight. We want them to get an understanding of Britain that they can take away with them and, and which may help us understand each other and work together in the future. The British Council still does vital work in education too. Its language schools also help ensure that we can communicate with other societies. Cultural diplomacy may at times be part of our public diplomacy effort. I can see that in some countries, when understanding an agreement can be elusive, art, poetry, theatre or indeed classical music played by great pianists can be our first language and open the door to greater understanding. Over the last year, we have carried out a number of public diplomacy laboratories, the public diplomacy labs, to help identify new ways to work, new ways of reaching the key audiences that excite and make sense to those audiences, rather than things we've always done. I have to tell you that initially the instinct among all of us in the public diplomacy world and in the Foreign Office was to try small variants of the things that we've done before, because, yes, it's difficult to break out of the comfort zone, but I want ideas that are different. I want them to be scary. I want them to be alarmingly new. So I've taken the position that if an idea in the public diplomacy area doesn't startle me, it's probably wrong. My default position is challenge. It's necessary to shake up this kaleidoscope so that it cannot settle back into the old picture picture. Just in case you feel that all I'm describing is having got bored with the status quo, I hope that's not the case. How can I be. I work with people who are innovative, who are imaginative, who are great to work with. Some in government, some outside government, but increasingly all looking for new ideas, new ways to establish peace and security across the world. May I say to everyone here that Patrick Carter didn't cover all of this in his report, but what he did do was prompt us to think about change. And that is what we've done. We've created new machinery and I've mentioned it, particularly the Public Diplomacy Board. And this in turn has led to new ideas and crucially to new synergies with partners and other organizations. And we are determined to find new ways of measuring whether we are having the impact that we intend to have. I don't personally believe that it's necessary for the United Kingdom to get credit for its role in raising consciousness or nudging a foreign government toward a new policy. What I want is to see the change take place. And I don't mind, particularly if there are no bouquets. Just that we've succeeded in moving the ideas central to our strategic perspective along. Because sometimes quiet diplomacy does work best and we've probably gone through rather too long a period where there's been too little quiet diplomacy. At other times our partners will and should play a more prominent role than we do because of the access they have and the ability they have to persuade others. What matters is getting the right result. It's not easy always to kick off the shackles of the old ways. After Pat Carter published his report, as I said, I detected a good deal of caution. But I was confident that within a few months we would be working again as enthusiastic partners. The World Service, the British Council, all of us right in the middle of this period of reform. And that is what has proved prove to be true. Our long term partners, particularly the BBC World Service and the British Council, remain central to the delivery of our new policies. Together we want to reach out to new partners because that is what it will take if we are to stay relevant, inventive and innovative. And this evening I'd like to hear your views both on our approach. And on any other detail, I'd like to know whether you have ideas that you want to share in the way that I feel that we have ideas now that we want to share. How should we sell develop the ideas of tolerance and respect for women in a particular culture? How could we galvanize the Americans on the question of climate change? What is the best way to engage with the Islamic world? How does it differ. Differ in Saudi or Southampton? A good ambassador in this kind of process needs to listen carefully and to speak persuasively. And I think that this has to be our approach to all forms of diplomacy. And that is why I ask you to tell me what you think. I remember well that I learned from the Shakespearean text. I quote, they that thrive will take counsel of their friends tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, your Excellencies. I'm here to take counsel. Thank you very much.
- [20:48]
A
Thank you very much indeed. There will now be a picture period for questions. I've just been asked to let you know this event is being recorded and the results will be made available online. And there's a podcast which the LSE will be launching on its website later in the term. There is, I'm afraid, only one microphone, so a little bit of patience will be needed in terms of waiting for that. But in order to facilitate the recording, it would be useful if we could all use the microphones. Please. Who would like to start the questioning? Would you like me to repeat that? Just to say that this event is being. I'll stand up. This is. Okay. Just to say that this event is being recorded and the results of this evening's recording will be made available on a podcast which the LSE will be launching on its website later in the term. We're going to use a microphone. We only have one microphone available, I'm afraid, so. I'd be grateful if everyone will be patient in waiting for us in order to ask their question. But we do need to do this in order to be able to record the proceedings. I'd like to invite questions now from the floor. We've been given a series of questions by Lord Treesman to address. Who would like to start the questioning?
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C
Thank you, Lord Trisman. My name is Esteban Davis. I'm a student here at the lc. I wanted to ask you what you think is the future for security policy in the eu and what do you think, would the involvement of Britain be in it?
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A
Did everybody receive that question? Clearly.
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B
Do you want to take several?
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A
Would you like to take several?
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B
Yes.
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A
In the front here, please.
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D
Edmundo Rutia, the ambassador of Guatemala. You in this country are about to have a change in the leadership. I'm not talking about you, but I'm talking about the Prime Minister. And we expect a change in the leadership.
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A
And.
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D
What are your view in terms of the future changes in the foreign policy in this country, given that there will be another Prime Minister?
- [23:42]
A
Thank you. And the third one over here, perhaps.
- [23:51]
C
Thanks very much. I'm a professional from Pakistan, and you already mentioned few incidences in Pakistan and the Muslim world. So my question is, you talked about the trust, the trust to be built for Britain in commonwealth countries such as Pakistan. But I see it how you're planning to do it when you, for example, promote values in countries such as Pakistan, democracy, but then you carry on supporting the dictators and such as Musharraf. So my question is around that. Do you want to address that, please?
- [24:30]
B
Thanks.
- [24:32]
A
Thank you very much. Three questions. Yes.
- [24:41]
B
Let me take the questions in the order they were asked, if I may. The whole issue of future security policy in the EU is a huge issue and so necessary. What I say is going to be a very brief response. But it does seem to me that there are now a number of challenges which have arisen which have indicated frailty in the capacity of Europe to respond to security problems. What happened in Bosnia Herzegovina, what's happened in Kosovo, are examples of our incapacity, if I can put it that way, to operate as effectively as we should or as rapidly as we should. And I think we had to learn the lessons of that. And I also think, by the way, that it certainly is true that NATO, as another alternative means of working in security environments, still represents our best choice chance of doing. Isn't the case, for example, that NATO is any longer restricted to security issues within Europe, nor is it the case that people can act without having the United States involved. I think that we need to bolster European security, and I want to do it, or we would want to do it, let me put it that way, in a way which doesn't involve a huge amount of duplication of efforts between the various kinds of security apparatus. One of the things I do know is that military leaders, I don't mean leaders of states. I'll come back to the last question in a moment. But those who lead our military forces are often quite keen on seeing a major expansion of them. I think that were it to be an expansion which simply duplicated, we'd be very unlikely to increase or improve European security apparatus. On the change of leadership, His Excellency, the Ambassador from Guatemala has asked me to commit political suicide. So I shall do this very carefully, because you only get the chance to do this once. I think that you will not see a huge amount of change in our foreign policy as a result of the change of the leader. But what I do think we are seeing is a greater emphasis on the development of soft policy methods. There is a problem, I think, and there has been a problem, that too many people see a lot of nails and believe the only thing that you need is a hammer. And I don't think that served us as well as it should. The reality is that we need a variety of methods. And the reason that I emphasise public diplomacy is because if you take the view, as I do, that the critical thing is to identify broad goals and to work with those and to get agreement about those, that is achieved by methods which require a great deal more diplomatic effort as well as a great deal more innovation. And I've tried to emphasise the innovation part. I think we will pursue the same. Same goals, but we will probably have greater variety in the way that we do it. The final question, I think, is a truly difficult question. The realities at the moment in the world are that there are serious problems in dealing with terrorism. And there's no doubt that almost all the governments who feel that they are threatened by terrorism are going to look for stable government in countries where they think there may well be problems in the genesis of terrorism. And for those reasons, I can see why there is great caution about what might happen were, for example, President Musharraf not to be on the scene. But having said that, there is a very big effort, particularly being made in the Commonwealth, to get a degree of normality and to try and make sure that leaders of Commonwealth countries are not uniformed soldiers. And that is a commitment which the Commonwealth has expressed on a number of occasions and for which it's working.
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A
Thank you.
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C
Thank you. Thank you for your presentation, Lord. I found it quite interesting, but I've got a question which is really based on me listening to what you said and contrasting that with what appears to be happening on the ground. The diplomacy you described is more about persuasion and influencing, but more and more, what one sees appears to be power play as opposed to diplomacy, if I may put it that way. And maybe to illustrate my point, it would appear from your definition of the basis being the protection of a particular nation's interest, I would have thought, actually to influence people, you need to go and base yourself mentally on what that other board of people perceives as its own interest. And if they perceive you as if you were identifying with not what you think are their interests, but what they perceive to be their interests, you stand a much better chance of influencing them.
- [30:08]
A
Thank you. Can we take a second question just there to your right? Thank you. Thank you, Lord Truthman. Elizabeth. Mystery from a Sunday Herald. Your mention of the motto of this school seems particularly pertinent to know the causes of things. I would like to know why your department has consistently refused to reveal the full rationale and financial workings behind HMG's decision not to go ahead with the initiative that the SCA proposed to give right of abode and full democracy to Ascension Island, Britain's only overseas territory where inhabitants have no right of abode and where they have to leave at the whim of the employer. I'd also like to know why Lord Treseman seems to be reluctant to divulge the full nature of his meetings with Caleb McGarry, George Bush's appointed regime change coordinator for Cuba, when Mr. McGarry has been far more forthcoming on these meetings. Thank you. Would you like to take those two together?
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B
Well, yes. Shall I just take those? The first point, of course, the point I am making is absolutely about persuasion and trying to influence people through persuasion. And I'd love to live in a world where that was all you needed to rely on, but I don't, and nor do you. And there are, I'm afraid, instances where the interests of world security demand that other options are available to us as well. I mean, I don't expect this evening you'll want me to rehearse all of the examples where that is the case, but I believe that it is the case. And they are regrettable when they happen, but they happen. And I'd also suggest that what constitutes the interests of people and the interests of a government are themselves not always well aligned. If you were to wonder what the interests of the Zimbabwean people were tonight, or the interest of Robert Mugabe is tonight, I hope that most of us would conclude that the interests of the Zimbabwean people were more significant and the steps that we need to take in diplomacy and by what means are required are appropriate in those circumstances. On the second set of questions, I know that I'm being asked on Ascension Island a question which, in asking it, you will know that I am not in a position to answer it because the issues are sub judicy and in front of the courts. And I'm afraid I'm not able to deal with matters that are sub judicy. It's Very tempting to do so, but I can't do so, and I won't. And on your second question, I've never met Mr. McGarry. I don't know whether he says he's met me, but I have never met him. I have never engaged in a dialogue with him. Nor do we have the same view as the American administration has about engagement with Cuba. And I think that it's one of those occasions, perhaps this evening, where we should lay some myths to rest.
- [33:01]
A
Could I just ask questioners to give their name, please, an affiliation before they ask their question? Thank you. There's a question down the front here, please.
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C
Hello, my name's Toby Glynn. I'm a master's student in international history at the lse. I'd just like to ask you. In Blair's Chicago speech, he initiated a new foreign policy doctrine, the Blair Doctrine, whereby it was enunciated that it was okay to intervene in sovereign states on liberal humanitarian grounds away from the traditional British foreign policy based on British interests. With the debark of Iraq and Blair's doctrine arguably ending in disaster. I'd just like you to talk about the evolution of public policy with this change in foreign policy doctrine with the Blair Doctrine and whether the disaster in Iraq is leading to a reversion of that and how public policy flows with that. Thank you.
- [34:06]
A
Could we have perhaps two more questions? Yes, one just there. Thank you.
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C
Hi, my name is Andrew Naustag. I'm an ELSI student. I was going to ask a question about the episode we had in the Shaht Al Arab kidnapping of the 15 British sailors earlier. How can the Ukraine, other countries who might conceivably find themselves in a similar situation, deal with that? Such events and do you see that there's a possibility that we could become hostage to public diplomacy in a sense?
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A
Yeah. Okay, go on. Okay. Yes, go on.
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B
That's it. Robert Moreland.
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C
I'm a former member of the European Parliament and of the Economic Social Committee of the eu. When I've been abroad and talked to.
- [34:59]
D
Governments and civil servants and foreign ministers.
- [35:02]
C
Etcetera, One always gets the highest praise of the FCO and of its diplomats. But having said that, there are buts, and the two buts I normally get, first of all, there is a tendency for the British always to think they know best. And the second one is that it's very much used to. You mentioned Palmerston, et cetera. But it's still a little bit, you know, behind doors, one to one, one to a small group diplomacy. It lacks a Consciousness of, to some extent, the outside world, transparency, talking to the press, as highlighted by the. What I consider to be the extraordinary vote of the United Kingdom and the Council of Ministers when it was outvoted 26 to 1 last June on making the Council of Ministers more transparent. Do you not think more could be done and more could be done to change this attitude?
- [36:07]
A
Thank you.
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B
Okay. The question about the Blair Doctrine, I don't think that we have changed the view that was put in the speech in Chicago. There is now, I think, a widespread international understanding that the old sense that it was never proper to intervene in another sovereign country has been accepted as generally untenable in the world community. The responsibility to protect, which became a part of the United nations Overall doctrine in 2005, I believe has replaced that. The first expectation is that a sovereign government should protect its own people. But unfortunately, not all sovereign governments do protect their own people. And let me use an example. It's probably the obvious one, Darfur. The reality is that the United nations has had to come to a conclusion about the current kinds of presence that would be required to create peace, stability, and some sort of future for people who are being wiped out in large numbers. Now, people could, I suppose, take the view that President Al Bashir has taken that it is none of anybody else's business to interfere in the Sudan. But I believe that after Rwanda and some other example, these are no longer options that will be accepted anywhere pretty much around the world. And that is not because there is a desire to interfere with people's sovereignty. And indeed, Sudan's a good case because the issue wasn't about sending in a force which would then take over the government or decapitate the government. It was a force which would complete the humanitarian job under the responsibility to protect. And as a world community, it's worth noting that almost nobody at the United nations believed that was wrong. It was adopted on Kofi Annan's recommendation, and I believe is a very solid part of the international architecture now. So I think the answer to your question is that there are possibly unusual circumstances, too many circumstances, if there's one, but there are unusual circumstances where the requirements on the installation community can't take sovereignty as the final word on the question about how we dealt with the release of the British sailors and Marines in the Upper Persian Gulf. Well, there were intensive. Well, there were intensive discussions, the word negotiations being been avoided, because it implies that some sort of deal which might be disreputable was done. And I can tell you at first hand no such deal was done, but of course, there were intensive discussions and I believe that what they demonstrated was this. Firstly, that on occasions, the international community, if it speaks together, can create enough pressure to persuade. Persuade people to have the discussion that you need to have. And that is something for which I'm profoundly grateful, because the international community did a remarkable job in that sense. It was of great importance. But secondly, what you've got to do in those circumstances is have the thoroughgoing discussion, the strong exchange of views, the attempt to understand each other's position. That gives you insight into the way to get through it. And those were discussions which I'm very. I'm sure we'll analyse them in more detail, more publicly. But those are discussions which I found it quite an experience to have led in London. May I turn to Robert Morgan's question? I thank him for the brief bit of praise that's always welcome. I suspect there's some truth in what you said, that people around the world. It's part of what I said was one of the definitions, in a way, one of the definitions of Britishness. It's probably true around the world that people do form the view of us, that we sometimes behave as though we know best. I hope that that is not a view that would necessarily persist, although it might be quite difficult to shake it. But the reason that I think we may be able to. To do so is because we now work not so much as people who come along with a solution, but people who are keen to work in partnerships. And most of the agreements we make in the diplomatic world now are agreements about partnerships, and those do work, and they involve learning as much as they do giving from outside. They are absolutely reciprocal. A lot of it is done behind closed. Closed doors. I think there are some interesting questions about whether too much is done behind closed doors, whether we could achieve greater transparency. I've taken the view, certainly in the conduct of my job, that if it's possible to describe in public what we're doing, we should try and do so. And there are some occasions when you can't do so, and I shan't try to defend that. I just say that it is part of doing this kind of. Of job. And there may even be occasions in the Council of Europe when, for example, people are working out what a negotiating position is with the United States, for example, on trade issues, where until that decision has been made and those negotiations have started, there may well be votes which suggest that it should be more transparent. But there will be occasions when all 27 of the. The nations will conclude actually they need to do some of that work in private. I think it probably is a matter of definition when that moment of becoming more transparent is clear. But my instinct is to try and be as open as we can.
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A
There were some questions from the central block here. I think perhaps we could start with the gentleman in the light jacket. Thank you.
- [42:10]
D
My name is Michael Hutchinson. I'm an interested parent. I was interested, Lord Treesman, that you've been a trade unionist for many, many years. You clearly also care about people. You also, no doubt, fully believe in democracy. I found your presentation very, very interesting. But I don't think any number of new methods or new gimmicks will work unless you have the trust of people. If there's no trust there, whether that be our foreign friends or our own people. I mean people not just here in the UK, but throughout the Commonwealth in our overseas territories. These new changes within the FCO will not have the effect. I'm just back yesterday from spending a week on Ascension Island. You said Ascension island was. You didn't mention Ascension island is where the BBC World Service, which I gather is central to your delivery of what you wish to achieve, is based. There's no democracy on Ascension. I regret to say I believe your government displays double standards. We pontificate about the importance of democracy in other areas of the world, but we do not allow it in our own backyard. I've spoken to many, many people in Ascension. You saying the mark of a good ambassador is to listen. Your own ambassador there. The administrator does not listen to the people. I do believe that we should look after the people within the overseas territories if we're going to preach democracy to the rest of the world. Trust has broken down there and in many other overseas territories. I won't mention. What are you going to do with respect to try and get the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to rebuild bridges, rebuild trust, so the our own people will trust you and your government. Whoever the new leader is, will trust your policies. If our own people don't believe you, you can't expect overseas and foreigners to believe you. Can I suggest as a start, you listen to the people in the overseas territories, listen to their wishes. And may I suggest that you appoint an as the new governor of St. Helena, who also acts as governor of Ascension, and also a new administrator on Ascension who will listen to the people, who has empathy for the people and will, if necessary, fight their corner before final decisions are taken. The final point, we should look after our own before we look after the interests of another nation. America.
- [45:24]
A
Thank you very much, sir. If I could just ask people to keep their questions and comments as brief as possible because we have a sea of hands here, people who would like to intervene. It's a very interesting discussion, but thank you very much. There's a question here in the front. Gentleman in the front, and then Excellency in the second row.
- [45:41]
C
My name is Keith Hindle from the School of Oriental and African Studies where I teach diplomats and would be diplomats. I first want to take you up on your sentence where you said, I want ideas, I want startling, scary ideas. Well, I'll give you one. Abolish the House of Lords. You'll have a great deal more credibility if you abolish the House of Lords and have an elected chamber instead. But to move to your new Public Diplomacy Board, which you, I think rhetoric ran away with you when you said we've changed beyond recognition the way we do diplomacy. You said, since Palmerston. Yes, yes, but then you said, since carrington. That's only 20 years ago, for heaven's sake. I looked at the annual accounts of the Public Diplomacy Board and in the Last one for 2005, I think it is, you spent 1.7 million and you had 1.3 million in additional funds from outside matching funds or something like that. So we have three or four million pounds being spent now. This is absolute peanuts. You're not going to change anything beyond recognition with that sort of money. I would remind our audience that you do spend 160 or something like that, million on the World Service. All of which I applaud, especially as I used to report to the World Service. But I mean, that is real money being very effective. But the new money so far I can't believe is effective.
- [47:24]
A
And a third question, please.
- [47:29]
C
I'm sorry, I'm not a development. I'm a journalist. I should be sitting there since I've been directed here. So my question is an augmented question because my colleague, I'm a journalist from Pakistan, name is my colleague from my country, mate from Pakistan has already asked this question, but I'm putting it in different, different words. See, your soldiers, British soldiers, are being killed in, in on Afghanistan and in Iraq to protect and promote democracy. But when the question of Pakistan comes, you try to give the skews of the reality of war on terror and to be cautious and put the pass the puck on the Commonwealth. Why is it so.
- [48:24]
B
Right? I don't know that there's a huge amount that I'm going to say that will convince Michael Hutchinson, but let me Say this. I'm not going to comment on ascension. I've already said why I won't comment on ascension. But I don't recognize the proposition you make about the overseas territories. As it happens, I'm also a minister for the overseas territories, and once a year we have a large conference of all of the overseas territories happens in October. And I do not recognize the kind of tension or disagreements between the overseas territories and the government of the United Kingdom that you've described. And I can tell you why. Firstly, they are evolving new constitutions which are. For most people, forgive me, this is probably going to sound like very obscure stuff. I. I don't mean it to. So I'll do it as briefly as I can. For most of these governments, they are evolving new constitutions and we are agreeing to new constitutions. I've personally negotiated two of them, Turks and Caicos and the British Virgin Islands. And in both cases, they've been big extensions of the rights and responsibilities they hold. And I'm very pleased about that. I'm proud of the empowerment that locally elected politicians. Politicians have achieved. And that will happen across all of the, certainly the larger of the overseas territories, which probably comes down to all but three, if you take Pitcairn as well as being a small one. And the one thing that I have said is that the United Kingdom remains responsible for the international relations and the adherence to international treaties for the overseas territories and for their security. I'm answerable in Parliament for that. I cannot give that to somebody else because the somebody else to whom I give it can't answer for it. And so we've got an understanding which I think is a principled one and a rather robust one, in which everything where all those areas where I do not have to answer for, they've got. And the ones I do have to answer for, I've retained. And I've made the point to all of those overseas territories that should they reach the conclusion that they would prefer complete independence, I can tell you I'm no kind of colonialist. I mean, I come up through the left in the United Kingdom, where anti colonialism was part of our political training. And any of them who want to have full independence will find that we will assist in any way we can along that trajectory. I have no difficulty with that whatsoever. So long as we are dealing with territories that don't have full independence, then of course it is bound to be the case that I have to answer for the things I have to answer for. And there's where the balance lies. I don't think that we work for America, incidentally. I don't think America needs us to look after them. I don't think America believes that it needs anybody to look after them. May I turn to Keith's point about the abolition of the House of Lords? It will either shock or please him to know that I voted for 100% elected house. I voted against every other proposition. I don't know if that raises my standing in his eyes, but generally speaking, generally speaking, I believe that you've got to have democratic institutions. I think if you don't have them, there's a real problem. I don't think we have resolved, incidentally, what the relationship would then be between the two Houses. And knowing us, it will take us about 500 years. But anyway, that's only a minor point that you made. 25% of the foreign Office's budget goes to the public diplomacy partners. It's not a small spend, it's absolutely crucial. And I've tried to. Absolutely. They deliver well, what is new is that as members of the new Public Diplomacy Board, not the one in 2005, the accounts for which you've read, but the one that's come in, gosh, I think we started in 2006, Chris, didn't we? And we've been going a year, so you're going to have to wait for the accounts a bit. But all of the partners are integrated into the strategy that I have described. So all of the expenditure is expenditure that lies behind that strategy rather than the things that have been done in the past. And what I would prefer is that the partners do absorb the bulk of the expenditure, because I'd really rather. I hope I'm not going to upset any of my colleagues who are civil servants here this evening, but I'd rather it wasn't spent on civil servants for the most part, in Whitehall. I'd rather it was in the active, live public diplomacy partners. That's where the bulk of the action is. And may I say that within that, because you mentioned approximately 3 million pounds of expenditure, it would have been worth mentioning something like 43 million pounds of expenditure on Chevening. That's without some of the other people who put contributions in something in the order of. I think it's about. Forgive me, I might get the figure slightly wrong, but this is a bit that's only recently come toward me, the Marshall Scholarship, which I think are with the United States, which are around another 3 million on top of that. And so I just do make the general point, if you look at the World Service, you look at British Council, you look at the expenditure on student scholarships, the fellowships under the Chevening Scheme. If you look at the expenditures on Wilton park, then what you really do see is something like a quarter of our Foreign Office expenditure. Absolutely, in the area of the new public diplomacy. And that is, of course, why it's so important to get it right. You've got to give an account to the public of that amount of expenditure. On the question of Pakistan, I don't know that there is a lot that I can add to my first answer. What I would say is that the Commonwealth, I think, is very, very clear that it wants to see solid progress to the most democratic forms that it can have in any country. In the Commonwealth, where there's a military takeover, generally speaking, there is an attempt to put it right. And if it isn't put right, the option for suspension from the Commonwealth is an option that comes along. There has been a really serious and in my view, a very good doctor dialogue between the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Don McKinnon, and President Musharraf. And it is my hope, I can't tell you whether it will be realized instantly, but it is my hope that we will get to a position where Commonwealth heads of state do not, in any instance, wear uniform. That has to be our objective. We want a separation out of military from political institutions. And I think there are colleagues in this room whose countries have gone through periods where the military have ruled, and it's taken a long time to get over that and to get past it, but it's been essential to get that period behind. I think that's a fair thing to say.
- [55:25]
A
Do we have some questions from the side of the room? Yes, please. The lady on the end of the row followed by the gentleman in the middle there, please. Sophie Middleburg. I'm a student at lse. I was just wondering if you could comment a little bit more on what you would view as measurement. Sorry. On how you would measure the effectiveness of public diplomacy strategy. You mentioned kind of changes in policy in countries that you engage with, but I wonder what else you might point to.
- [55:53]
C
Yeah, sorry. Philip Fisticaver. I'm a researcher in this area. I'm interested in the shift that you've described between all star public diplomacy, which is concerned with the positive projection of the image of Britain and this newer emphasis on achieving consensus on big issues. How are you hoping to achieve that in the future? And are you, for example, not taking advice? But are you seeking to emulate, for example, the experience of Canada or Norway in this field, who themselves have sought to seize upon big issues and influence the debate globally.
- [56:28]
A
Thank you.
- [56:28]
C
Yes, thanks for giving me the chance. Again, I support what you said earlier about Britain intervening in Darfur and I think it's a very good idea. But the problem that I see with this is that it is a selective intervention. So when Israel was bombing Lebanon, Tony Blair for a month or two months didn't say that this bombing to be stopped. And how would you feel if Iran to intervene in Iraq now or Pakistan to intervene in Israel Palestinian situation now? Thank you.
- [57:08]
B
The first question on measuring effectiveness. Let me just start with a very quick comment about the things which I do not think are useful measures, but which we've been measuring for a very long time. If you ask the British Council, which is an excellent organisation, does an extraordinary job, and so this is not a criticism of them. If you ask them, generally speaking, how do they measure what they were doing in the past, they will describe a number of events to you and they will tell you they will have counted the number of people who came along to those events and they will give you a kind of a. Well, technically a semantic differential from, you know, strongly loved it to absolutely hated it. And they will measure the degree of approval of what it is that they've seen. Well, I don't think that's a very effective thing to do because if you invite a lot of people to come and see a new production of Macbeth, broadly speaking, the people who will come want to see a production of Macbeth, they'll find it readings of Wordsworth, I mean, they'll find it very enjoyable. And when they leave, they will mostly say that they've enjoyed themselves. How much do you know or what do they think about Britain as a result? Well, actually, the truth is, you don't know anything at all. It is not an effective way of measuring what you're doing. But what I do think we can do is we can look at, and we've got some consultants who've been working on the techniques for doing this. What we can do is say, what are our. This is not approval of Britain, but what is it we think we have done in, for example, moving countries where forced marriage is an issue, along a legislative path, where forced marriages become illegal? How many of the members of the political class have taken up the issue, raised questions, introduced legislation, argued for it? How many of the representatives of the media have taken up that kind of issue and what. With what effect? What has been the quality and the nature of the debate? And so you can across a range of other things. The question that I'm asking, as you will all recognise, is can we begin to measure whether we are encouraging people to move along the line of doing things about the things we care about, about the priority issues that we care about, if at the end of it, they say they think, I think Britain is a rather better place. That's great. I mean, I would never say that. I would regret that. Obviously not. But that is the critical thing. We are looking for new methods of measurement which demonstrate outcomes in terms of our priorities, rather than measures of rather superficial opinion on the consensus on the big issues. It's a really interesting question. Of course, other countries, Canada and Norway are quite good examples, are beginning to develop strands which are in some senses similar. But when you talk to people in the public diplomacy world, and we've had a couple of big discussions with our friends from all around the world about what it is they're trying to do, they will still tell you that for the most part, what they're trying to do is create a better impression of their country. And I question whether that is a viable objective. And interestingly, I think, and Norway's a very good example of this, when you look at what they're actually doing, I suspect it's not what they say they think they're doing, they're actually doing something which is rather more like the things I'm advocating this evening. Of course we can learn from them. We should learn from them. And what I detect is that the new debate that's opening up between countries that are saying, well, are we really doing things effectively is creating an exchange of ideas, which hasn't happened for a very long time. If you just step back a couple of years, and you said to people five years, and you said to people, what do you count as being the ban V, if you like, of diplomacy or diplomatic action? Mostly they talk about government to government, about the private work that gets done, the sorts of things that lack transparency which I was being asked about. But now I think there is a real change in the notion of reaching very many more people in order to influence outcomes about the issues that are of the most importance in the modern world. I'm glad to answer the question about the intervention in Darfur. I do believe that people have got to be consistent in the international community. And whilst I don't think anybody was initially going to observe a ceasefire on either side of the conflict in the Lebanon, I myself have raised a number of questions and did raise right through it, as did My colleague Kim Howells, about whether the response was proportionate. And, you know, I stand by what I said during that period. But the core of your question, may I suggest, comes back to something which I'd ask you to think about, and it's this. In Darfur, as an expression, there is a strong desire, particularly in the African Union and in the United nations, to have a United nations force that is principally African because people believe that would work best. It's not a matter of Britain intervening. That is the belief of the people who will have to hold the ring on this. But there are as yet relatively few offers from the predominantly Islamic world to take part in that peacekeeping operation. Were Pakistan to make an offer to do that to Ban Ki Moon, I think we would have a party in Sunbury. So maybe we should. Well, I know that other people, people want to ask questions, so please let me try and deal with the point very briefly. One of the things I know about the nations in the region, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, is that they've got an extraordinary record in troop contributing in very difficult parts of the world. And the standards of the troops that are contributed to peacekeeping, to peacekeeping, has been exemplary. I think there are a number of places where it would make a profound difference if that were to continue. Whether you feel that that is inhibited or not by the United Kingdom's attitude to various things, candidly I doubt it because most of the places it is happening have been as a result of agreements which have been worldwide and have included, for example, Pakistan and the United Kingdom, India and the United Kingdom as part of a wider community of nations.
- [64:34]
A
We could take two questions, perhaps just.
- [64:36]
C
Here on the left, Jacob Halpin from the British American Security Information Council. The importance and the value of soft power and public diplomacy are being spoken about more and more at the moment. But it still seems to be the case that when it comes down to it, it's old fashioned power politics, hard power that is the order of the day in shaping foreign policy. And it would seem to me that the messages given out by acts of power politics that is going to war, speak much louder than the more subtle approaches of soft power. So my question is, is there a risk that all of Britain's best efforts to promote a positive image through public diplomacy are liable to be undermined by acts of hard power.
- [65:27]
A
Thank you. And perhaps the lady on your right, thank you. Ito Sullivan from University College Cork and also an intern at the British American Security Information Council. So it's probably not surprising that my question's about Northern Ireland and How do you get diplomacy to work when there's a small violent minority on both sides who, well, who are using violence and getting that onto the front page and getting that onto your TV screens? How does diplomacy work in that situation?
- [65:59]
B
Two very difficult questions. The first one, I certainly think it's true that we have been in a period where although a great deal of diplomatic effort goes on, it has kind of vanished below the noise of what you've described, described as hard power being deployed, the projection of power by nations that are capable of projecting power. I think that trying to get that balance right and trying to rebalance things is a very, very big task for us now, if that's the burden of your point, I'm in agreement with you, but it is also true. And I, you know, let me choose just two examples which are not the ones like Iraq, which would come up perhaps more often where I think that we have been right to try to combine both sorts of power in order to get a result. My first example is Sierra Leone. The second is Kosovo. In both cases, actually, but particularly in Sierra Leone, we were about talking, told very widely that were the United Kingdom to have troops in the area, it would be an absolute disaster, that it was impossible to get stability, that the battles with the warlords, not least Charles Taylor, would descend into a further nightmare of carnage. We took the view that unless somebody in the Mana river delta in that region tried to stop the wars that were going on there, the prospects of ever getting a civil society capable of standing on its own feet were negligible. And so I think that what we did was both, and indeed the reconstruction of Kosovo now, and I'm hoping the United nations will take the right decisions on the independence or some version of the independence of Kosovo, will again be an example of stabilization by projection of hard power, difficult as that will occur to everybody as being together with proper diplomatic work done to secure the peace. The point is made about whether we have secured the peace in Iraq. Following the conflict in Iraq. My judgment is probably not very different from other people's. It is plain that the peace has not been secured in that way. Seems to me to be self evidently true on the question of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland was, by world standards, probably a relatively small civil war, but it was a civil war and it went on for a long time. I've been trying to do some analysis of civil wars to understand what's involved in them. I think that there's been something around 65 since the end of the, the Second World War, and they have Some characteristics which I believe we can describe to each other relatively easily. The first is they go on for a very long time, remarkably long compared with almost any other kind of conflict. The second is that in a tiny, well, not tiny, but a small proportion, it's probably seven or eight, they've been resolved by the parties agreeing to power sharing. And even then that's sometimes broken down and we've had to go through a whole cycle to re. Establish. Almost all of them, in other words, have been resolved by one side winning or the other side losing. That, I'm afraid, tragically, is how most of them have been resolved. Now, in the case of Northern Ireland, I think that it finally occurred to the IRA that. That it was a war that was not going to be won and that the means of trying to secure their principal objective of united Ireland could not be achieved by those means. But potentially, and within the context of the European Union, they might make greater achievements, particularly for the Catholic populations in the north of Ireland, by other means. So they're faced by choice, in other words, of whether you talk to try and resolve because in the long term you think other things might happen that would be going along the route that you wanted to go along, or whether you continue to fight in circumstances where you cannot win. In the midst of all of that, forgive me for that background, but in the midst of all of that, of course, behind the scenes and often in ways that are necessarily private and certainly not transparent, people try and do lot of work to persuade people that the moment to talk has actually arrived. And sometimes that works. And from our point of view, not only do I think that we tried very hard, and I think it's to the credit. It was to the credit of John Major, not a politician with whom I ever had a great deal of agreement, and to the credit of Tony Blair, a politician with whom I've had a lot of agreement that we did the work. And it's enormously to the credit of Bill Clinton that he did a lot of the work, because I think that that was critical in persuading people that there was more to be gained by peace than continuing to fight.
- [71:10]
A
I'm aware time is going on. Perhaps if we could have two final questions right at the back, please.
- [71:20]
D
Thank you. Lord Preston Ianor. I used to work in the Foreign Office, mainly dealing with China. I was very pleased with your emphasis on the importance of understanding the causes of things and that public diplomacy and diplomacy work best when people listen. What I'd be very interested is what are. If you give two Examples of things that during your time in the Foreign Office, engaging in diplomacy that you have learned from perhaps big countries like China, Russia, the United States and also from.
- [71:53]
B
Very much smaller countries.
- [71:55]
A
Thank you. And the gentleman immediately behind you, thank you.
- [72:00]
C
Thank you, Lord. I'm Selmu from Chagos. I know that you know this doshi about Djokosha and I know that Britain is a champion of human rights. And what will be the future of those people being deported and lawfully from their native land? Thank you.
- [72:25]
B
Right on the first question, my first example. Let me start with a smaller example. Probably in the way, at least it's viewed in global terms. I think that we have spent quite a long time in most of the international national community misunderstanding the conflict around the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea, misunderstanding the causes of it, misunderstanding what might resolve it. And I found just as a personal experience, that listening very, very much harder to what lay behind it, what some of the, not just geopolitical interests were, but what some of the economic interests were. The access, for example, of Ethiopia, which is a large country and potentially quite a prosperous country, to get to the sea, to get its products out through a deep water port. To understand what normalization across that border would mean to them and to understand equally the border aspirations of the Eritreans in international resolution of that is something which I think we would have, we, I would have blundered on a long time with had we not made very, very consistent efforts to go and spend a long time listening in a much larger case. I think we are at the moment involved in what is a very difficult listening exercise with the Russian Federation about its energy resources and what it regards as energy power. Now it's, it would be easy to say, well, here we have a nation that was used in the Soviet Union, guys, anyway, to very, very extensive power in the Cold War because of the nature of the balance of destruction that was the possibility of the Cold War. And then not to understand how that nation might see its current resources and its current power being exiled in different ways if it is not shown a sufficient degree of attention as we work through the problems that it is concerned with. And I just give you an example of such a problem which we're working through. Conscience is not an example which is supposed to lead to a conclusion because it's a work in progress. Not understanding how the Russians understand security in Georgia and what might be involved, involved in the movement of Georgia into NATO and therefore a fundamental change in the borders of their, as they see it, security zone and security interests would be Something which we will misunderstand unless we listen very carefully. That's a big example and one which I think will probably be a big example for probably. Probably a while to come, but one which I think is important. I'm not sure I totally heard the last question, but let me just say one thing about the whole of the work right round the world on human rights. I mentioned the responsibility to protect earlier. 2005 was an extremely important year, I believe, for the United nations for several reasons, some of them reasons of failure, as well as some of them reasons for success, reasons for failure. There was a serious plan, Kofi Annan advocated it for very widespread reform of the whole of the machinery and the apparatus of the United Nations. It's more or less not happened. And I think that the United nations actually hobbles along and cannot do the kind of job that probably we would all want it to do as the arbiter of international relations relations. The form the Security Council is in, who's on it, whether it reflects genuinely great interests around the world and so on, as well as the whole of the way, the operation of the secretariat financing. But there were a number of things which were genuine successes. One of them was the decisions on, in my view, on the responsibility to protect. But the second which is allied to it ought to be the development of the new Human Rights Council. Now, the world community has a new choice here. It can either have a Human Rights Council which does the work which is needed seriously to protect human rights around the world and takes the decisions not only about who it should elect on to the Human Rights Council, but those nations which sometimes put themselves forward, whose human rights record is appalling. It has to take decisions about that in terms of credibility of the Human Rights Council, and it has to give the Human Rights Council teeth. It's not simply something that the United Kingdom advocates. I think if Ban Ki Moon was sitting here in front of you today, you would hear the same words. It is a requirement now that we make the new Human Rights Council work. And among the things it needs to do, in my view, is to project soft power and the persuasiveness that is needed to try and get people into good from bad positions on occasions, as the question about Chicago revealed. On occasions it will need to do more forceful things than that. But I'd like to think that we would be sufficiently persuasive not to have to do that very often, but to try and align people, people around a set of values which the international community has signed up for, but seems painfully reluctant to deliver.
- [77:54]
A
I think on that note, perhaps that's the moment in which to conclude reluctantly, because we've had a very interesting, stimulating evening. I would like, on your behalf, on behalf of everybody in the room, to thank Lord Treseman very much for speaking to us this evening and indeed, for giving us so much of his time for an open question and answer session. Thank you very much.