Looking at last week's pictures of a grinning, banana-manipulating David Miliband, I can't but help think how Bulldog Britain is ill-served by its Poodle Politicians. They give every impression of being more like B-list celebrities than tough international leaders. And indeed to a considerable extent they are. Few of them have known any career but the stage – politics, media, public relations.
Our juvenile Foreign Secretary for example, did politics at university, then became a policy analyst at the Institute for Public Policy Research, before joining Tony Blair's policy team. Various junior ministries, and now he's Foreign Secretary. You'd have thought that a Foreign Secretary ought to have a little more world-wisdom than that.
Of course, the smell of the political greasepaint and the roar of the media crowd seduce the Conservatives too. One or two of them have actually run something in their lives, but not many. Miliband's opposite number, William Hague, did at least attempt to run the Conservative Party for a while, which must be one of the toughest jobs on the planet.
But as I look at David Miliband I wonder how we ended up entrusting our nation's security and world standing to a method actor. Is he supposed to take on the world’s tough guys and win? We’d be better off with Bruce Willis as Foreign Secretary. And Bruce Willis probably wouldn’t alienate quite as many countries as we have done.
