Airstrip One

Placing Morality above Interest

Simon Heffer has returned to the flaws in Britain's foreign policy under the Blair administration in his latest contribution to the Sunday Telegraph and starts off sensibly with the suggestion of closing down the Foreign Office. A statement of our relationship with other countries reduces to trade or war: actions designed to defend or enrich ourselves.

From such a promising start, this columnist attacks Blair for introducing the culture of spin into foreign policy and using Britain as a grandstand for his own posturing as "Assistant Saviour of the World". This is where I part company with Heffer as there is little evidence that our foreign policy is currently driven by opinion polls although it is aware of domestic restlessness. If Blair struts across our television screens at another junket, it is no more and no less than previous leaders have done.

Heffer does not attack the roots of Blairite foreign policy: an ethical foreign policy that follows and folds our interests into the tenets of liberal internationalism, couched in the rhetoric and sanctimoniousness of political correction. They deny discussion of Britain's interests on the grounds that their policy is moral. However, Heffer does not decry this moral discourse that currently suffocates foreign policy debate in public but uses it to privilege his own focal points: Gibralter and Zimbabwe.

However, we punch above our weight to a suicidal degree, and our increasingly unconvincing support of America risks jeopardising that crucial alliance while simultaneously reducing Mr Blair's credit among his pals in Europe.

If the Prime Minister wants to engage in real foreign policy rather than just pose, he must make what he likes to call "hard choices". He has to judge the difference between right and wrong better than hitherto, which means no more sucking up to Libya or Iran.

He has to start making unequivocal judgments about the threat by foreign powers to the interests of Britain, whether it be in Saddam's capacity to drop anthrax in Trafalgar Square, or Mugabe's racist murdering of British subjects in Zimbabwe.

It appears that Simon Heffer would not be able to judge Britain's current interests unless the scales of moral indignation drop from his eyes.