And for the EU’s latest foreign policy disaster (and one that reflects enormously badly on Gordon Brown if the story is true), the Telegraph claims that Baroness Ashton is on the brink of resigning after only months in her job:

“Every day is an uphill struggle,” said a European Commission official. “No one predicts she can stay five years, not even she.”

Lady Ashton has come under fire from powerful countries led by France, for allowing the Commission to seize too much control of a new EU diplomatic service that she is building from scratch.

Her lack of political authority has been blamed for a failure to stamp out bureaucratic Brussels in-fighting over who will control the new European External Action Service, with 7,000 diplomats manning over 130 embassies around the world.

Bitter turf wars over budgets and senior posts mean the diplomatic corps will be delayed, a situation that has angered governments and embarrassed the EU on the global stage.

Following one recent row, she allegedly threatened to walk out of her job and had to be talked out of resigning on the spot by diplomats and officials.

Of course, this may be wishful thinking by the Telegraph, but it’s another shocking misstep if true…

Update: And the plot thickens. According to the Daily Mail, Peter Mandelson is floating the resignation rumours because he expects to be Foreign Secretary and needs to find a job for David Miliband.

An Ashton aide told the MailOnline the report had ‘Mandelson’s fingerprints all over it.’ Mandelson wants to force Ashton to resign and hand over the EU job to David Miliband, the source said.

Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, was offered Ashton’s job last year but refused it, reportedly because he didn’t want to spend ‘years on a plane’.

But does Mandelson really expect Labour to form the next government? And how could he push Ashton out between now and Gordon Brown naming his cabinet after the election?

So with a week to go until polling day and the polls still suggesting the possibility of a hung Parliament as the result of the gripping election campaign currently underway in Britain, this is as good a moment as any to start thinking through how such a scenario might pan out – and what it will mean for Whitehall and foreign policy.

First, the obvious question of what colour coalition we might end up with. Many in Labour had assumed that the Lib Dems’ natural inclination would be to snuggle up with them, given their shared progressive tendencies. Rather a rude awakening for them, then, to see Nick Clegg distancing himself from Labour last weekend – prompting plaintive noises from David Miliband on Twitter, who complained that

“Clegg swerve to back Tories needs to be explained to all progressive minded voteras. Old politics not new.”

But according to a senior Tory I spoke to earlier this week, it’s straightforward political logic that the Conservatives would be the Lib Dems’ first choice as a coalition partner, given the political risks they’d run for the next election campaign if they were seen to have propped up “the fag end of an unpopular government”. Well, maybe, maybe not – Lib Dem activists and MPs, most of whem are well to the left of Nick Clegg, might have something to say about that.

More interestingly, though, this same Tory also suggested to me that David Cameron himself might secretly prefer a coalition with the Lib Dems – if the choice is between that and a wafer-thin outright majority.  Cameron’s own position as party leader would be secured by an outcome that puts him in Number 10, coalitions included. But the wafer thin majority scenario would face him with the horrendous possibility of his administration being John Major 2.0 – with Number 10 held to ransom by MPs well to the right of the Cameroons’ Tories.  (As polling of the Conservatives’ prospective parliamentary candidates shows, many of the likely new intake of Conservative MPs are not, shall we say, in the same place as Global Dashboard readers on issues like Europe or climate change).

A coalition government, on the other hand, might strengthen Cameron’s hand considerably – above all when it comes to making the tough calls needed on public spending cuts. A government with a tiny majority and less than a third of the popular vote has a de facto legitimacy problem in taking brutal decisions. A coalition with 60% of the popular vote, on the other hand, will find it much easier to claim a serious mandate – if it can agree a joint program.

But it’s also too soon to rule out the possibility of a Lib / Lab coalition. There’s a whiff of panic in the air, with even seasoned commentators questioning whether Labour could be obliterated as a political force. My old boss Matthew Taylor said two days ago that “if Labour trails in a bad third next week, a divided, demoralised and impoverished Party could easily go into a long term decline, becoming a Party whose highest realistic aspiration is to a be a minority partner in a future coalition”; Rachel Sylvester, too, asks whether we’re looking at “the end for Labour”. All this may make for fertile ground for a further-reaching coalition deal than the Tories would be willing to offer – and note that Nick Clegg followed his appearance on the Andrew Marr show with an interview with Patrick Wintour setting out his terms for a deal with Labour.

Whichever of the two big parties the Lib Dems get into bed with in a hung parliament scenario, a massive what-if will be whether The Deal is just a short term political pact – on that runs through to October 2011, say – or a proper continental-style Coalition, built to last for a four year term.  And that brings us to one of the biggest questions in all this: what would be the Lib Dems’ top negotiation priorities.

To the extent that the media are asking this question, their main assumption is that it will be electoral reform that sits at the top of Nick Clegg’s shopping list.  But while that certainly does matter for them, the other sine qua non will be as many seats in the Cabinet as possible. This is all about being seen to be a serious party, ready for government. Today, the Lib Dems have zero ministerial experience, and only two front benchers with national recognition (Clegg and Vince Cable). But if they secured – say – five Cabinet seats, and held on to them for four years, then that could shift how people see the party for good.

I agree with that analysis – and would only add that given the public spending context, there’ll be much more of a premium on some jobs than others. Of course, the obviously top jobs – PM, Chancellor, Foreign and Home Secretaries – will be desirable simply by dint of profile and prestige, even if (as in the case of Chancellor) they’ll be unpopular due to spending cuts. (Interesting to note, incidentally, that in his Paxman interview, David Cameron ruled out any possibility of Vince Cable being Chancellor in a Tory / Lib Dem coalition, saying he disagreed with his underlying analysis of the crisis. That would of course increase the chances of a Lib Dem foreign secretary, always a more politically straightforward job to give to a ‘frenemy’: c.f. David Miliband under Gordon Brown, Joschka Fischer under Gerhard Schroder).

As for the other posts in the Cabinet, I think they’ll fall into two camps. On one hand, there’ll be the big public spending departments: Children & Schools, Housing & Planning, Work & Pensions, Communities & Local Government, Transport, Defence, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Running any of these departments will, for the most part, involve a whole world of pain: unpopular cuts, furious public sector workers who will spend much of their either abusing you or on strike (or both), and a steady stream of bad news stories. I’d also include Health in this list, as I simply don’t believe that any party will be able to protect it a hundred per cent.

And on the other hand, those departments that are not primarily about spending money: Business & Innovation, International Development, Energy & Climate, Environment & Food, Culture (plus the Leaders of both Houses, and Chief Whip). Given the choice, wouldn’t you rather have one of these?  And what’s interesting from a Global Dashboard perspective is that suddenly it’s the departments for global issues that are the really interesting ones, rather than (as has traditionally been the case) the big spending departments.  Also interesting is that these are some of the issues the Lib Dems are most interested in.

So much for the political stripe of a coalition government and its ministerial composition.  Next question: how might it change the way policymaking works in Whitehall?

[Read the rest of our After the Vote series.]

If the BBC leaders’ debate tonight devotes more time to bigotgate than to housing, I am going to dedicate the rest of my days to working for the Corporation’s demise.

Britain’s unsustainable housing market is at the root of many of the country’s problems and could wreak appalling damage on voters during the next parliament. It must feature in the debate.

Someone should start by reminding Gordon Brown of a promise he made in his first budget speech in 1997:

Stability will be central to our policy to help homeowners. And we must be prepared to take the action necessary to secure it. I will not allow house prices to get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery.

As I argued recently:

When Brown spoke, the average house cost £75k  - about £10k above the early 1990s nadir. A long long boom was just beginning. Prices would peak in February 2008 at an average of… £232k!!!

In other words, Brown promised not to let house prices spiral out of control and then allowed them to treble, during a period when household disposable income increased by only 30% or so.

2007 saw what is often called a housing price crash, but as this graph shows, it was really only a blip.

As the government pumped money into the economy and pushed interest rates to unprecedented low levels, the bubble started to inflate again. House prices are now back to the levels of June 2007.

Second guessing the housing market is a mug’s game, surely this is unsustainable. British houses are overvalued by nearly a third, according to one measure. Worse is the amount of mortgage debt outstanding – $1.238 trillion. By comparison, government debt is ‘only’ £950 billion.

Low interest rates and buoyant employment (relative to the economy’s woeful performance) have kept householder’s head above water – but the highly-indebted remain highly vulnerable to any increase in interest rates or to further job losses.

My best case for the housing market is a long period of stagnation (we desperately need lower prices). Worst case would be a sudden, vicious and self-fulfilling collapse. I believe this is currently the most serious economic risk facing the British people (one which is, of course, interrelated to Europe’s sovereign debt problems).

So what do the major parties have to say about this in their manifestos?

• Labour wants to expand home ownership and exempt all houses under £250k from stamp duty (likely to push house prices up). It says it will build 110k houses over two years (likely to push prices down).
• The Conservatives promise to exempt first time buyers from stamp duty if their house costs less than £250k. It wants to put communities in charge of planning, which is highly likely to reduce the number of houses built.
• The Lib Dems plan to use loans and grants to bring 250k empty houses back into use.

Pretty weak beer, all told. No party questions the shibboleth that Britain needs more homeowners. None is prepared to explain how they will manage risks that have been increased by the response to the financial crisis.

Far less do they have policies to fulfil Brown’s promise from 1997 – to end boom and bust in the housing market radical proposals (see my Long Finance paper) to prevent the mortgage market from screwing borrowers every twenty years or so.

So here’s my question for tonight’s debate:

In 1997, Gordon Brown promised he’d never let house prices get out of control again, but then presided over a housing bubble that has left British householders owing £1.2 trillion on their mortgages. In government, what will you do to stop the housing dream from becoming a housing nightmare?

If you’re in any doubt of the seriousness of the Greek sovereign debt crisis, read Mohamed El-Erian in the FT. A banking crisis has fuelled a sovereign debt crisis, which could in turn spark another banking crisis (with the whole caboodle, as I have argued, part of a sustained episode of financial instability that stretches back to the 1990s):

A number of things have to happen very fast over the next few days to have some chance of salvaging the situation. At the very minimum, the government in Greece must come up with a credible multi-year adjustment plan that, critically, has the support of Greek society; EU members must come up with sizeable funds that can be quickly released and which are underpinned by the relevant approval of national parliaments; and the IMF must secure sufficient assurances from Greece (in the form of clear policy actions) and the EU (in the form of unambiguous financing assurances) to lead and co-ordinate the process.

This is a daunting challenge. The numbers involved are large and getting larger; the socio-political stakes are high and getting higher; and the official sector has yet to prove itself effective at crisis management.

Meanwhile, the disorderly market moves of recent days will place even greater pressure on the balance sheets of Greek banks and their counterparties in Europe and elsewhere. The already material risks of disorderly bank deposit outflows and capital flights are increasing. The bottom line is simple yet consequential: the Greek debt crisis has morphed into something that is potentially more sinister for Europe and the global economy. What started out as a public finance issue is quickly turning into a banking problem too; and, what started out as a Greek issue has become a full-blown crisis for Europe.

Election or no election, the UK simply cannot afford to sit on the sidelines while this crisis runs out of the control. Alistair Darling needs to stop giving speeches to activists in Scotland and get back to work at the Treasury.

Lord Adonis stopped campaigning as soon as Eyjafjallajökull erupted. Darling must do the same as the UK faces contagion from Eurozone turmoil.

As regular readers will know, I’ve been banging on for a long time about the need for a comprehensive database that tells us exactly how exposed international trade is to peak oil – or, for that matter, to the maritime sector being brought into the international climate regime and made subject to really severe emission controls.

After all, the bunker fuels used to power container ships and bulk carriers are much less easily substitutable than other kinds of fossil fuels. You can replace coal-fired power stations with renewables or nuclear; you can replace petrol-fuelled cars with ones that run on electricity or hydrogen.  But ships? That’s another story. As a UK government study published just before Copenhagen found, for instance, “it will be extremely challenging, and expensive, to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from shipping and aviation … there are a number of options available in each sector, but currently most of these are not economically viable”.

But if we don’t have readily available substitutes for marine bunker fuels, then what happens to maritime trade – to globalisation itself, in other words – if oil costs start really soaring again, or governments start to get serious about carbon pricing?

In particular, as I asked in The Feeding of the Nine Billion, what happens to the import bills of countries that depend on food imports from overseas (like most of the fragile states in West Africa, for example)? And what does it mean for China – whose advantages on wage costs could easily end up offset by increased transport costs, as actually happened when oil costs went into triple digits?

Although a number of analysts have been asking that question ever since the oil price spiked in 2008 (most notably Jeff Rubin – see the link above and also this), what we’ve all lacked is a really serious database that works out the costs of maritime trade, and how exposed these are to energy prices. Until now.

For it turns out that the OECD have been compiling a large new Maritime Transport Costs database. Although they didn’t make a lot of noise about it, they also posted a working paper (pdf) on their website a few months back – which confirms the significance of the issue (emphasis added):

Maritime transport costs represent a high proportion of the imported value of agricultural products — 10% on average, which is a similar level of magnitude as agricultural tariffs. This study shows that a doubling in the cost of shipping is associated with a 42% drop in trade on average in agricultural goods overall. The tendency to source imports from countries with low transport costs is therefore strong. Trade in some products is particularly affected by changes in maritime transport costs, in particular cereals and oilseeds, which are shipped in bulk.

Most valuably of all, the database goes into massive levels of detail on fuel costs in particular – making it a truly indispensable part of the toolkit for working out what happens to globalisation in a world of emission controls and peak oil. So, where can you access the database?

Answer: you can’t. For news reaches me that its publication is being blocked, by one OECD member state alone – namely, the United States. For, it is said, reasons of national security. How do you like them apples? (Locally grown, I suppose.)

To anyone who’s been following Europe’s inability to co-ordinate itself in climate talks or the G8 or G20, Alan Beattie’s commentary on Europe’s approach to co-ordinating the Greek bailout will sound horribly familiar:

Repeated inconclusive meetings of European finance ministers; public squabbling over lending conditions; debates about the role of the IMF; doubt, even, whether bail-outs are permitted by EU and national law. A bizarre diversion halfway into talk of creating a European Monetary Fund completed the picture of an exercise in cat-herding. The delay and confusion has made default more likely and squandered the benefits of IMF involvement. Since the fund is providing some of the loans, Greece will be branded with the IMF stigma, for sure. But, apparently for reasons of self-esteem, the eurozone wants to do most of the lending itself – at higher interest rates than the IMF – and to set the conditionality. At a stroke this dilutes the benefits of the fund’s cheaper lending, forsakes some of its policy credibility and diminishes its use as a political flak jacket.

Even now, approving the loan in each of the 16 eurozone states will take another week. Adherence to constitutional niceties is admirable, but this is a debt crisis in the capital markets of the 21st century, not the Congress of Vienna. If it takes nearly three months to get agreement in the eurogroup, then the eurogroup should not be leading a financial rescue. The house is burning down, and the eurozone is sitting around debating the constitutionality of calling the fire brigade or filling a bucket of water.

It is often in the aftermath of a crisis that the government definitively loses control of the agenda – it moves on, while the media cements its narrative on who was to blame, and why.

So it is with the ash cloud. We are told that the Met Office plane that should have been up in the air monitoring the ash cloud was undergoing a refit. As a result, many journalists are now convinced the whole crisis was a con. “Remember that ash cloud?” asks the Daily Mail. “It doesn’t exist, says new evidence.”

Jim McKenna, the Civil Aviation Authority’s head of airworthiness, strategy and policy (great combo), appears to admit the decision to close British airspace was a cock up:

It’s obvious that at the start of this crisis, there was a lack of definitive data. It’s also true that for some of the time, the density of ash above the UK was close to undetectable.

Head to the CAA website, however, and you won’t find anything on these claims. The most recent item on the ash cloud is a highly-defensive op-ed from its chairman [sic], Dame Deirdre Hutton, written three days ago. There’s nothing at all from Jim McKenna – either to explain what went wrong, or to place his quote in a broader context.

NATS stopped updates on the volcano on Friday, while the Met Office’s website is a car crash, and its latest update typifies the jargon-heavy style that the UK’s weathermen and women have made their own. Here’s a defence of the Met’s predictions in the nearest the Met comes to using plain English (more detail here):

We use multiple dispersion models endorsed by the international meteorological community. The output from the Met Office volcanic ash dispersion model has been compared with our neighbouring VAACs in Canada and France since the beginning of this incident and the results are consistent.

The results from our model have been verified by observations of volcanic ash from a variety of sources, including from instruments carried by Met Office, FAAM and NERC research aircraft, balloon and land based LIDARS.

So did the cloud exist? Was Jim McKenna the source of newspaper claims that “the maximum density of the cloud was only five per cent of the safe flying limit”? Who knows? And there seems to be little chance of the UK’s public sector telling you.

Update: Just because it’s wonderful, have a butchers at this superb video of Europe’s airports coming back to life.

Today, the Telegraph plumbs new depths in its vendetta against the FCO over Popegate.

Yesterday, after quoting an anonymous threat from the Vatican to cancel the Papal visit, it was forced to admit that official sources had dismissed the memo as having “absolutely” no impact on the Pope’s plans.

Instead of backing off (having made the most of what was, even without the garnish, a good story), the paper has now doubled down in a truly despicable article that:

• Outs the author of the memo,  23 year-old Steven Mulvain, as gay, based on his Facebook status. (I wonder how the paper got that information? Surely, Mulvain didn’t have a completely open profile.)
• Names Mulvain’s boss – Anjoum Noorani - printing his photo to ensure that readers are in no doubt that Noorani is (gasp) a member of an ethnic minority.
• Hassles Noorani’s mother (!) in Windsor, as if she is in any way relevant to the story.

Of course, the paper doesn’t come straight out and allege that the whole affair is a gay/Muslim plot, though that is clearly the implication. Instead, it complains that the FCO failed to put a Catholic in charge of the visit, rustling up another anonymous quote from the Vatican:

The most striking thing about the Foreign Office team has been how ineffectual they are. They have been disengaged and, frankly, clueless.

I have never had the impression that any members of the team were informed or even sensitive to the Catholic Church or Catholicism generally.

Gutter journalism.

Update: Damian Thompson throws some more paraffin on the fire:

The Catholic Church in this country is (a) not wildly enthusiastic about Benedict XVI, and (b) paralysed by political correctness. The four-strong FO team was led by a member of an ethnic minority and included a gay man. There’s nothing wrong with that: they could have done a fantastic job, particularly if the team had included a practising Catholic (perhaps from an ethnic community – they’re the ones who go to Mass these days). But they didn’t.

And there’s no evidence that any danger signals were spotted by Eccleston Square, which has delegated the papal visit organisation to the Left-wing Mgr Andrew Summersgill, a Magic Circle hardliner some of whose colleagues are heavily into rainbow coalition-style politicking. (If Summersgill had been told that the FO team included an Asian and a gay guy, I can imagine him asking why the transgendered community had been left out.)

From the Telegraph, contrasting reactions to Popegate – the FCO memo that ridiculed Pope Benedict XVI. Damian Thompson – “editor of Telegraph Blogs and a journalist specialising in religion”:

The Foreign Office’s sick attack on the Pope: what did you expect?… My reaction is to say to the Bishops of England and Wales:

NOW do you finally understand what sort of snide, cheap and ignorant prejudice has flourished under this Government and its civil servants – wall-to-wall secularists for whom the Roman Catholic Church is at best an antiquated irrelevance and at worst a sick joke? [...]

Oh, sure, the Foreign Office says: “This is clearly a foolish document that does not in any way reflect UK Government or Foreign Office policy or views” – and, of course, most of these proposals wouldn’t have seen the light of day.

But reflect the attitudes of Brown’s government and its politically correct employees is precisely what the document does.

Tim Collard – former diplomat and, apparently, “an active member of the Labour Party”:

Predictably, the usual suspects have blown it up into an international incident. I regret to say that our blogmeister Damian Thompson has made himself look a bit of a Charlie, heading his posting “The Foreign Office’s sick attack on the Pope: what did you expect?”

No, the FCO is not institutionally secularist, Satanist or whatever: it just contains a lot of people who like taking the mickey. Chuck it, Thompson!

Perhaps, we should ask why British diplomats are having to spend their time prepping for the visit of a head of state who (i) leads a religion rather than a state (diplomatic relations are with the Holy See, not Vatican City); (ii) exerts a disproportionate influence on international organisations, especially whenever abortion, contraception or HIV/AIDS is on the agenda (denouncing the latter as a ‘true pathology of the spirit” at the General Assembly Special Session on AIDS in 2001, opposing emergency contraception for women raped in Kosovo).

According to Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the principal agent of Papal diplomacy is the Pope himself, part of whose global role is to “contest systems or ideas that corrode the dignity of the person.” In practice, this means using international fora to oppose:

Delegations from certain Western countries who wish… to impose models of life that were actually the result of the propaganda of certain minorities within their societies… It will always be the duty of the Holy See to prevent the lowering of personal and social moral standards and to contribute to raising them.

No other religion enjoys the diplomatic privileges accorded to the Holy See=, with its status is yet another example of how Europe’s historical dominance skews the international system.

Maybe some brave soul in the FCO should set to work on a memo suggesting that it is time to start treating the Catholic Church like any other religious organisation…

- Writing in the The New York Review of Books, Paul Krugman and Robin Wells highlight the importance of historical perspective in understanding the financial crisis. Experience, they suggest, shows that a failure to implement significant post-crisis reforms leads to “a resurgence of financial folly, which always flourishes given a chance.”

Michael Pomerleano explains the need for a new institution with the necessary legitimacy to provide global financial stability, arguing that “[n]ational public policies can no longer be independent of global collective-action problems”. Amartya Sen, meanwhile, explores the continuing significance of the 18^th Century ideas of Adam Smith to contemporary global economic troubles.

- Elsewhere, in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor, Henry Kissinger offers his views on Obama’s recent nuclear initiatives, US-China relations, and coherence among the BRICs. Over at World Politics Review, Nikolas Gvosdev reports on the lack of support forthcoming among BRIC countries for strict sanctions on Iran and highlights some of the other options open to the US administration in dealing with Tehran. Jonathan Holslag, meanwhile, assesses China’s recent diplomatic “charm offensive”, concluding that this will yield little over the long-term if words aren’t backed up by meaningful action.

- Finally, two television debates and nearly three weeks into the British general election campaign, David Marquand explains why this is “a moment for careful historical reconnaissance”. Assessing the rise of Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats, he explores comparisons with the three-party politics of Britain in the early 1920s. The FT’s Philip Stephens, meanwhile, assesses the impact of the debates and the implications of a hung parliament for the British electoral system.

No advantages to Europe

Cameron: “In Europe, but not run by Europe.” Clegg: “I want to lead in the European Union.” Brown: “Never let us be an empty chair again in Europe.” Clegg wants us a referendum to stay in the EU, but Cameron thinks that would be a con (take that Europe sceptics). Brown: “David is anti-European. Nick is anti-American.” Half the audience heads for the pub.

Should the UK invade another failing state.

Clegg: Yes, but we’d do the job properly next time (right equipment, right strategy). I’d drop Eurofighter and would avoid thinking about Trident. Brown: Al Qaeda in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan.”Terrorists cannot be allowed to have bases in the world where they attack the United Kingdom.” And the Afghan army can beat the Taliban, even if we can’t. What does IED stand for? Cameron: “I will think carefully about what’s in the national interest.” I practically live in Afghanistan and I speak fluent COIN.

Cameron and Brown gang up on Clegg. Cameron has now had a dig at Clegg for opposing or flip-flopping on Trident and wanting to sell our place for the P5. Brown to Clegg: “get real.” Clegg: You want to exclude the biggest question of all from your defence review.

Fluff about climate change – what are leaders doing personally to reduce emissions?

Brown, Cameron try and turn back to policy. Cameron: I’ve come out… against the 3rd runway at Heathrow. Clegg: Can I spend a minute being boring about aviation tax?Brown - Cameron’s against wind power, Clegg’s against nuclear – I believe in both. Cameron mentions the Green Deal – houses to get £6.5k of energy improvement goodies, paid for by the money they’ll save on future bills. Clegg jabs at Brown for being sidelined in Copenhagen – while the US and Europe stitched up the deal.

Do you hate the Pope as much as I do?

Clegg comes out… as an atheist. Brown:  I’m a Presbyterian. Cameron: I don’t agree with the Pope on abortion.

Er – I think that’s it for foreign policy – which has bored the nation rigid… Yep – it’s all sparked up now we’re off international issues. Meanwhile, people are wondering which channel this is on.

Banking system (not a question – just came up by chance).

Clegg: Brown’s failed to tackle the banks – he should break them up. High street should be split from investment banking. Brown: We don’t need small banks, but more capital and international supervision. Cameron: _______.

On Twitter, the UK’s aid community is going bonkers about the failure to mention development. And this pic is doing the rounds…

And it’s over… Foreign policy barely got a look in. Nothing at all on poverty or international development. Today’s threats may be global, but British politics can only cope with local. Whoever is the next PM is going to need a new narrative on how we survive in a world where all the game changers come from overseas…

Gideon Rachman reacts.

How bemusing is all the muttering from the Navy about UK warships being deployed to help rescue stranded tourists from the continent?  First we had Admiral Jock Slater saying on Radio 4 that he was “uneasy” about warships being used to ferry people when no hostile environment was involved. And then yesterday, someone gave a savage anonymous briefing to the FT’s Sue Cameron:

“These are military ships, they’re all having to be moved around away from their normal duties and where do you stop?” said one senior figure. “Some of the stranded people are in Thailand and Australia. Are we going to sail there to pick them up? These vessels are totally unsuited to the task anyway. They’re not exactly fitted with safety belts for children.”

And:

The whole idea seems to have come from Lord West, former first sea lord and chief of naval staff, and now one of GB’s ministerial Goats – government of all talents. Much of Whitehall’s angst is centred on him. Says one observer, Lord West “seems to think he is still in charge of the navy”. With a defence review coming up after the election, Lord West doubtless saw it as a way of justifying the navy’s budget and its plans for two new, hugely expensive carriers. If so it’s a costly piece of PR. Military experts put the cost of keeping HMS Ark Royal afloat at a whopping £3,500 an hour.

Right, because if HMS Ark Royal has much better things to be doing. Like maintaining readiness for a possible Soviet invasion… I… er… oh.

Truly, one could not make this up. The RN is offered a wide open goal to show itself as a flexible, can-do operator. In the middle of the election campaign. With brutal spending cuts in prospect. At a time when everyone’s suddenly remembering that Britan’s an island. Far from being a costly piece of PR, this is all the Navy’s Christmases at once – or would be, if they weren’t so apparently hellbent on cocking it up.

Owen Barder has a suggestion for a question that someone ought to ask in tonight’s leaders debate:

We understand that all the main parties are committed to increasing aid to 0.7% of GDP, with some relatively minor differences about how that would be used.  But if we are serious about development, we need to look beyond aid to address the circumstances in which developing countries are trying to establish economic growth and political stability.  Our other policies – for example, on trade, climate change or immigration – make a huge difference to how quickly poor countries can develop.  Will you, as Prime Minister, be willing to make changes to UK policies which are against the immediate interests of a group of UK citizens – for example, arms exporters or pharmaceutical firms – but which support our collective longer term interest in seeing a fairer, safer and more prosperous world?  If so, what concessions would you make?