Cameron decides to take personal control of the government’s response. He chairs his first COBRA meeting on the crisis on 5 February, announcing a further £100 million for flood maintenance and repair.26 On 10 February, he begins a two-day visit to Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, including Chesil Beach in Dorset.27 One of his aides describes him as being ‘absolutely spooked’ by the visit. He returns to Downing Street all fired up and tells his staff that ‘this is the most important issue – nothing else that you are doing matters as much as these floods’. He puts Number 10 on a war footing. When Cameron hears that dredging has not occurred in a number of rivers, he explodes. ‘Well, why is it not happening?!’ The Private Office have to present him with daily reports, the civil-contingencies team start working flat out on it, the Policy Unit is tasked to look at new measures on insurance, while the press office is under no illusion that the PM believes they are dealing with a major national event. Several in Number 10 wonder at his loss of perspective: ‘“Oh shit, we’ve got to get Number 10 mobilised. This is a national crisis.” But it isn’t,’ says one. Cameron believes that action on such occasions is better than the alternative: this is one of those moments when Number 10 needs to take a grip. A farcical aspect of his sensitivity to the media comes on a visit to the Somerset Levels where he worries that his Hunter boots make him look too posh. One of the staff is dispatched to Asda to buy cheap black wellingtons, to give him the common touch. That spring, Crosby learns that one of the reasons voters give for saying Cameron is too posh is seeing him on television during the floods wearing a shiny new pair of black wellingtons.
When the Environment Secretary’s retina becomes detached in four places, Paterson is immediately booked in for eye surgery and cannot deliver his statement in the House.28 While Paterson is having his eye operated on, the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles is placed in charge; he promptly launches into an attack on the Environment Agency (EA) for its handling of the crisis. Paterson, convalescing at home, is outraged not only at the public humiliation of the former Labour minister Chris Smith, who had been reappointed the EA’s chair by the coalition, but also at the attack on the ‘troops’. Paterson texts Smith to say that he personally would like to praise the thousands of EA staff for all the work they have done over Christmas and the New Year. Paterson suspects that Number 10 lay behind Pickles’ continuing attacks on DEFRA. On 28 January, Smith is on Radio 4’s Today programme to defend the EA and mentions receiving a supportive text from Paterson. This statement does not go down well in Downing Street, and Paterson’s eventual dismissal edges a notch closer. Pickles refuses to back down and appears on The Andrew Marr Show on 9 February, once again criticising the EA, saying, ‘I am really sorry that we took the advice … we thought we were dealing with experts.’29 Number 10 faces the prospect of the Environment Department and Communities Department being at loggerheads with each other. One crisis is begetting another.
Problems continue for several weeks, with severe flood warnings remaining in parts of Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Surrey and Berkshire. Flooding along the Thames continues to affect homes as the river reaches its highest level in sixty years. Cameron, like many of his predecessors as prime minister, believes that the PM alone can deal with such an emergency: he gives the aftermath of the floods forensic attention over the next few weeks, securing the money and overseeing the strategy until, by the end of March, the problems ease. By gripping the government’s response from the centre, Cameron has managed a difficult situation the best he can. A symbolic moment comes on 4 April when the railway line at Dawlish reopens. The worst of the floods are over, and communication routes and power lines are repaired after months of disruption. Farther to the east, diplomatic lines are also being restored.
TWENTY-NINE
China Warms, Russia Cools
October 2013–March 2014
‘We must reopen our trade links with China,’ says an irritated George Osborne in late 2012. For months he has been pressing for a restoration of normal relations with the country. He is looking for all and any possible stimuli that he can find for the sluggish British economy. ‘Calm down. Let’s hold our nerves and stand by our principles,’ is William Hague’s response from the Foreign Office. The Foreign Secretary is resistant to any ‘kowtowing’ to the Chinese, insisting that the economic relationship between both countries remains solid and that the government shouldn’t be panicking about the political relationship. ‘You get no favours from China by showing you can be pushed around,’ one Number 10 aide insists. But Cameron’s instinct is to say, ‘This is ridiculous. I have made overseas trade to boost the economy a cornerstone of my premiership and I’m not being allowed to go to China. I’ve got to go to China!’
The problem with China dates back to May 2012, when Cameron and Nick Clegg meet the Dalai Lama in London, causing real anger in Beijing. At the start of Cameron’s premiership, it had been all sweetness and light between London and Beijing. On his second day in power Cameron takes Premier Wen Jiabao’s call to congratulate him ahead of most other world leaders.1 He announces he wants to visit China, and six months later, on 9 November, he is on a plane to meet Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao before going on to Seoul on a trade trip. Relations are good, if not warm: ‘Both sides were trying to work each other out,’ says one in the PM’s party. Cameron has his first direct experience of Chinese ambivalence towards Britain: there is huge interest and respect for the country’s educational institutions, culture and history, and a desire to trade, but also a lingering resentment of Britain’s exploitative role during the nineteenth century. This long historical memory strikes with a vengeance when Cameron and his party are asked to remove their British Legion red poppies, because they are associated in Chinese memory with the Opium Wars of 1839–42 and 1856–60. As they enter the Great Hall of the People they are told in no uncertain terms that the poppy is an offensive symbol in Chinese culture. This is distinctly awkward. Should Cameron do as his hosts ask? He refuses. British ambassador Sebastian Wood draws on every tool in his diplomatic bag to smooth over the British refusal to remove their poppies. The discussions themselves prove more perfunctory than substantive. There is some meeting of minds on rebalancing the economy and on climate change, and insubstantial talks on human rights. Cameron sticks by the traditional Foreign Office stance that the British take the last seriously, but won’t let the issue overwhelm the importance of good relations between both countries.
Relationships warm considerably when Vice Premier Li Keqiang comes to Number 10 two months later on 10 January 2011. He is viewed correctly as the likely next premier of China. Cameron wants to do everything possible to cement a personal relationship. This means a trip up to the family flat above Number 10, an invitation chosen in part deliberately to contrast with the impersonal vastness of the Great Hall. Li Keqiang is introduced to Samantha as well as to Florence, and given a personal copy of a book by the distinguished English lawyer Lord Denning, The Due Process of Law, which Li had translated from English into Chinese when a student at Beijing University.
On 14 May 2012 the event occurs which reverses this newfound bonhomie. It is almost mandatory for each new British prime minister to meet the Dalai Lama at some point. Cameron is less dewy-eyed about him than some of his predecessors like Brown and Blair, but goes along with what he is told will be a deft way of meeting Tibet’s great religious leader without overly upsetting the Chinese. The forum selected is the Templeton Prize award ceremony in St Paul’s Cathedral, where the two men exchange a few words together. The religious setting is judged appropriate as it softens any political overtones. Cameron is warned by the Foreign Office that China will make angry comments but ‘it will all blow over in three to six months’. As expected, Sebastian Wood is summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Beijing to receive a rebuke from China’s vice foreign minister.2 Shortly after, a visit to Britain by China’s chief legislator Wu Bangguo is cancelled by the Chinese government.3 All as expected: but after six months, Beijing is sti
ll fuming and, a year later, on 7 May 2013, a report is made public that the Chinese government are still demanding an apology for Cameron’s meeting.4 Number 10 and the Foreign Office have miscalculated. They have failed to take into account the nature of China’s change of leadership that occurs once a decade or so. The struggle for power encourages senior Chinese politicians to position themselves within the regime. Beijing intends to send the British government, and the international community, a strong message about the consequences of interfering in what they see as China’s internal affairs. Moreover, the Chinese government is less than thrilled by London’s enthusiastic support for the Arab Spring, as it considers the protests a threat to regional order in the Middle East, North Africa and its own backyard.
Pressure from Osborne for a rapprochement is mounting, while Cameron is asking ‘Why am I having to pay this heavy price for doing what I was told would not become a major incident?’ Angry words flow between Number 10 and the Foreign Office. In Beijing, Wood feels trapped between both, and anxiously seeks a way of unblocking the diplomatic impasse.
The thaw arrives in the summer of 2013. Beijing begins to feel that the punishment has gone on long enough. After all, one senior British official says, ‘it all came out as a major victory for the Chinese over Cameron. No leader in the world will now see the Dalai Lama with the exception of Obama.’ Having demonstrated their point, the Chinese are eager to enhance their access to currency markets in Europe, seeing Britain as a way of playing Germany off against France. They use several intermediaries to pass messages back and forth to Number 10, including British businessmen. Senior figures in Number 10 are chiefly responsible for brokering the relationship, working closely with the Chinese ambassador in London, Liu Xiaoming. As part of the new accord, the British signal that they have no plans for a repeat meeting with the Dalai Lama, though they fall short of refusing to rule out ever seeing him again. Cameron restates in the House of Commons that Britain accepts Chinese sovereignty over Tibet.5 Soon afterwards, China’s new foreign minister Wang Yi is on the phone to William Hague, and Liu Xiaoming pens an article in the Telegraph on 28 June saying that he hopes ‘a new chapter in our relations’ is beginning.6 Osborne’s trip to China in October 2013 is an early fruit of the new amity. Osborne is deeply interested in China and remains enthused by the possibility of highly profitable links with Britain. Needs must. His focus on building foreign investment between the UK and other countries finds a receptive audience in Beijing. In an effort to help the Chinese government gain greater international recognition for their currency, Osborne starts issuing British government debt bonds in the Chinese currency renminbi the following year, the first Western power to do so.7 Another thaw is in the air: London mayor Boris Johnson is in the tour party to promote the capital, and much is made of his inclusion by Number 10. In Beijing, Osborne comes under heavy lobbying to support China ahead of the Japanese for the G20 presidency in 2016. Discussions flow back and forwards between Osborne and Hague. The Foreign Office is reluctant, but they eventually concede that the British will back China hosting the G20 very soon, and will say in public that China will make a very good chair for the summit.
The Foreign Office is not enthusiastic about Cameron having a quick follow-up visit to Osborne’s. But Cameron insists, and it is arranged for him to visit Beijing with a large trade delegation from 2–4 December. The ambassador Liu Xiaoming, who has accompanied the party, continues to urge the British to at least offer to help on the G20 presidency, and presses his case while Cameron is waiting to see the premier. Cameron debates it with his aides,. They decide against making the offer, but worry that the Chinese might create difficulties at the press conference. But all is well, and it is implicit that, as a quid pro quo, Cameron is not allowed to announce a new Airbus contract. Both sides negotiate a face-saver – an open offer of a state visit for the premier to the UK, which satisfies everyone’s dignity. Li Keqiang, who had become premier in March 2013, hosts the Beijing visit, which is judged by both sides to be a success. Messages reach the British Embassy in Beijing after Cameron’s return to the UK that he is regarded as ‘a sensible man in the world, a statesman aware of the issues and prepared to debate them’. Cameron and his Chinese hosts agreed to dub their new relationship an ‘indispensable partnership’.8
Cameron has long believed that one of the foreign policy roles of the prime minister should be to promote British business abroad. In 2010, Hilton and others galvanised Cameron in his belief and the PM would sometimes even describe himself as ‘Britain’s most enthusiastic salesman’. Cameron had been on an early trip to Turkey and India with a plane full of businessmen. Throughout his premiership, Cameron would take this role to heart and promote British products abroad whenever possible. The Financial Times approvingly labelled Cameron’s approach as ‘mercantilist’.9 The ‘GREAT’ Britain campaign is a further manifestation of Cameron’s desire to promote Britain for trade and investment. The partnership with China can be seen as a continuation of these aims.
The new bond is cemented when in June 2014 Li Keqiang visits Britain and £14 billion of UK/China deals are announced.10 A highlight for the visitors is a meeting at Number 10 in the Cabinet Room. Another is Li’s meeting with the Queen at Windsor Castle, a rare gesture that illustrates the importance attached to the relationship with China. The pro-democracy demonstrations that erupt in Hong Kong in the latter half of 2014 threaten for a while to unsettle the new friendship and, on 30 November, China bans a visit there by Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. Tenacious work within diplomatic channels averts another stand-off. On 13 January 2015, it is announced that Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party and president of China, will make a state visit later in the year: the last time a Chinese president visited was Hu Jintao ten years before, when Tony Blair was PM.11
By 2015 diplomatic relations have been restored to where they were in 2010. The rift over the Dalai Lama meeting has been resolved. Some senior figures within the Foreign Office and the armed forces are nevertheless scathing about the government’s approach: ‘They’ve had no strategy on China – it’s just all compromise, appeasement and reaction, in a knee-jerk way.’ But this view does not account for the economic relationship being transformed. The UK became the third biggest destination for Chinese investment during the course of the parliament.12
As relations improve with China, they start to go very wrong with Russia. On 28–29 November 2013, European leaders meet at Vilnius in Lithuania to sign an agreement for Ukraine to move closer to the EU. The host nation and the Baltic states are pushing hard to bring Ukraine into the EU camp as another bulwark against Russia. But this pushes Putin too far. To general surprise, because European capitals had not been focusing on relations between Moscow and Kiev, the Ukrainian government announces that it is halting discussions with the EU, opting instead to pursue discussions with Russia.13 Putin has brought irresistible pressure to bear on Kiev. With rare exceptions, including William Hague and Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, who cautions ‘be careful how hard you push the Russian bear’, few voices anticipate how the Kremlin might react to the West’s courting of Ukraine. The focus of most EU countries is on the technicalities of whether Ukraine meets criteria for membership. For some weeks, Cameron has been reluctant to go to Vilnius, complaining that it will be just another big, boring European summit. Sensing that interesting change is in the air, he becomes suddenly engaged and decides he will attend. At the lunch at Vilnius, he sits near Ukraine’s President Yanukovych. Cameron had pronounced him a ‘crook’ after first meeting him at Davos in January 2011, and refuses to have anything to do with him. When aides try to get Cameron to call him to keep him on track with talks about Ukraine and the EU, he sends a stingingly blunt email reply from his BlackBerry: ‘No’, in brief. After the lunch, Cameron describes him as a ‘deeply unimpressive villain’. Things are indeed about to get very interesting in Eastern Europe.
In May 2010, Cameron had come to Number 10 determined
to cast a fresh eye over Putin. Over the previous few years, the relationship between Russia and the UK had been very poor. In November 2006, former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko had been murdered in London with radioactive polonium-210. In July 2007, both countries expelled each other’s diplomats. Putin kept the tension high with his demands that Britain hand over billionaire Boris Berezovsky, accused in Moscow of fraud and embezzlement. Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 further angered the West and heightened tension.
Cameron is keen to move on from the post-Cold War uncertainties. What matters to him in this new era is promoting the British economy, and globalisation: hence his enthusiasm to establish a different relationship with Putin, and bring down barriers to Russian investment in the UK. So that he is not under any misapprehensions about the kind of man he is up against, Foreign Office officials brief him about high-octane conversations between Putin and Cameron’s predecessors as PM. He realises that he will have to be hard-headed and transactional if he is to make any headway, because Putin will pounce on any weakness. Various avenues for closer relations are explored: the British intelligence agencies are willing to share information to help the Russians in preparation for the Winter Olympics at Sochi in February 2014. The Kremlin see this as a great breakthrough, evidence indeed of a British backdown. As early as his visit to Rome in August 2010, Cameron’s team are talking to Silvio Berlusconi’s staff about helping open corridors to Moscow. Hague visits Moscow in autumn 2010, which goes well. Cameron hopes to have his first meeting with Putin when he is in Zurich for the decision over the 2018 World Cup on 2 December, but that falls through when Putin refuses to attend, claiming FIFA has been subject to a smear campaign.14 It is not a good omen. Cameron has to wait another nine months before seeing him, in Moscow on 11–12 September 2011, the first time that any British minister or official has spoken to Putin in more than four years.15 Cameron begins the visit at the Kremlin by seeing President Medvedev, who had been elected in 2008, but Putin is the power behind the throne as prime minister, and indeed is re-elected to the presidency when Medvedev steps down in 2012.
Cameron at 10 Page 41