When politics should stop at the water's edge

There used to be a convention in both this country and the US of A that politicians didn't criticise their political opponents when those opponents were representing the country abroad, and particularly refrained from partisan attacks on efforts being made to improve the security or trade position of the country.

The term often applied to this principle is "Politics stops at the water's edge" after the US Republican senator Arthur Vandenburg, Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations committee. Asserting that we must stop “partisan politics at the water's edge," he cooperated with Truman's Democrat administration in forging bipartisan support for the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NATO.

Sadly the Labour party lost sight of the principle that they should put the country's interests above their own partisan advantage a long time ago, as their attacks on David Cameron's trade mission to China demonstrate.

David Cameron has been on a three-day visit to China with a more than a hundred representatives of British Businesses. The main purpose of the visit is as a showcase for British business and to agree specific trade contracts such as a £120m agreement to give UK healthcare firms access to the Chinese market.

Discussing the agreements being reached during the trip, David Cameron said on Monday

"This is a visit that has delivered almost £6bn worth of deals. It is a visit that comes on the back of an eighteen month period where we have seen more Chinese investment into Britain in the last 18 months than in the previous 30 years."

Some of the discussions held this week may also help pave the way for a free trade deal between the EU and China, for which David Cameron has pledged strong support. Speaking after a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday, he said:

"Some in Europe and elsewhere see the world changing and want to shut China off behind a bamboo curtain of trade barriers. Britain wants to tear those trade barriers down."

He added: "I've said to Premier Li that I will champion an EU-China trade deal with as much determination as I'm championing the EU-US trade deal."

As Dan Hodges, a former Labour member and Trade Union official pointed out in the Telegraph here - more of his excellent article later - those Labour and press spokesmen who criticise David Cameron's visit make a number of points, with most of their criticisms falling into one of four mutually incompatible positions which Hodges parodies as follows:

1) His trip is merely about making money for rich British businessman.
2) His trip will not make enough money for rich British businessman.
3) He should forget all about rich businessman, and instead spend his time berating his hosts for being beastly to the Dalai Lama.
4) He should not be going anywhere near his hosts because they’re beastly to the Dalai Lama.

Personally I think there is a time and place for expressing concern to the Chinese about their human rights record, and we have to accept that they have an equal right to criticise ours. David Cameron was right to meet the Dalai Lama. Simon Jenkins asked  “What would Cameron say if Beijing met Ed Miliband and issued stern injunctions against the bedroom tax?”

This is my response and not David Cameron's, but I suspect he would be entirely relaxed about the Chinese meeting Miliband - it is part of our system that opposition leaders do often meet world leaders, and Cameron himself met a large number including Barak Obama while he was opposition leader. And if the Chinese were so foolish as to display their ignorance of Britain by attacking the so called "bedroom tax" - actually we have no tax on bedrooms in this country - I don't think this would generate much additional support for critics of the government's housing benefit policy.

Simon Jenkins also suggests that politicians don't help businesses sell more abroad. I suspect there are some politicians of whom this is true. However as Hodges points out, if it is true as Jenkins complains in that business-friendly newspaper, the Guardian, that

“No one has ever shown that politicians' trade visits add one penny to the balance of payments that a good exporter could not have added unaided,”

then this "raises the question: why were so many good exporters so keen to be part of the Prime Minister’s delegation? Or is it just the crap exporters, two bit carpetbaggers like Jaguar, Airbus and BP – none of whom have never made a penny overseas – who go along for the ride?"

Labour ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for trying to sabotage a trip which helped British businesses sign deals worth £6 billion.

Let's give Dan Hodges the last word:

"Five years after the worst economic crisis for a generation, Britain is fighting for her economic life. We are finally clawing our way towards recovery, but as many of those criticising the PM’s visit love to point out, it is a perilous one. Another economic shock could tip us over the cliff.

"Leading a trade mission to one of the world’s economic powerhouses is precisely what the Prime Minister should be doing. Every competitive advantage – however minor – should be identified and exploited. It doesn’t matter whether David Cameron is taking his stepfather, his neighbour or his old aunt Matilda. We need to be scrapping for every contract, job and pound of investment we can lay our hands on.

"The world does not owe us a living. If we really do want to do something about this cost of living crisis everyone is banging on about, then we actually need to earn more by selling more things to more people. And that does actually mean getting off our backsides and meeting them, and explaining what it is that makes our products special.

"David Cameron isn’t on a junket. He’s doing his job, which involves trying to secure more business contacts, more orders and more inward investment. And if we’re going to compete in the Global Race it’s time we stopped trying to nobble our own Prime Minister before the gun goes."

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