1 July 2005
We asked a whole bunch of the UK's most popular bloggers this very question about the G8. As you might expect, we got some great answers - one in verse, and all very relevant. Click on the short cut links below to read each one.
Time for poor to become rich through trade, not aid
- Adam Smith Institute Blog
Blair: the Anakin Skywalker of Gleneagles
- Chicken Yoghurt
Grins, smiles and handshakes... but little else
- Public Interest
Blair, Bush and their pals
- A Renga by The Sharpener
Slim pickings among the Mangoes
- An Englishman's Castle
Matter? It's a matter of life and death
- Lenin's Tomb
There's no-one else
- Perfect.co.uk
G8? No great harm, no great good either
- Social Affairs Unit
Don't expect altruism from Blair and co.
- The Skakagrall
Applaud the symbolism at least
- SJ Howard
War of the Worlds, Gleneagles-style
- G8 Summit Alternative Activities
Time for poor to become rich through trade, not aid
Adam Smith Institute Blog
The G8 summit represents a real chance to change the world. Talk in the past has been of more aid, and a few more crumbs tossed from the rich man's table. For the first time there is an appreciation that poorer nations become rich through trade rather than aid.
We should give humanitarian aid, of course, to conquer malaria and aids and to help access to clean water. But the real help we can give is to buy their produce. This means opening our markets, and ceasing to subsidise our own producers. The nations which emerged from poverty did not do it through aid, but by trading produce the world wants to buy. Large parts of the world are climbing the wealth ladder in this way, and we can and should help the others to do likewise.
It will not be easy. Entrenched interest groups in rich countries with real political clout will have to be taken on and persuaded and helped to do without the subsidies and tariffs which have sustained them at the expense not only of their own taxpayers, but of the world's poor as well. The G8 summit provides an opportunity to make lasting change.
by Dr Madsen Pirie
Adam Smith Institute Blog
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Blair: the Anakin Skywalker of Gleneagles
Chicken Yoghurt
Does this G8 Summit matter? To a Prime Minister with an eye on the history books, it does.
Tony Blair's G8 presidency is his last chance to salvage a legacy from his shipwrecked premiership. Can he save the planet? Why not. His failures to save Iraq, the NHS, the railways and roads, accountable government and the poorest in society were clearly just a case of setting his sights too low.
But Blair is G8 President in name only. He's less the John Lennon of global development, as Bono understatedly described him, and more its Anakin Skywalker. Whatever his aspirations, his fate is in the hands of more powerful figures with their own agendas.
The Bush Administration is throwing only spare change into the bucket marked "Africa". Leaked reports show it rejecting proposals to even acknowledge mankind's role in climate change let alone supporting measures to tackle it. The value George Bush places on Blair's "blood price" for their special relationship is clear.
Expectations are being lowered - witness Blair's understatement that "climate change is obviously very difficult" at his monthly press conference. He'll pounce hungrily upon any crumbs that fall from the banqueting table at Gleneagles and declare them a feast.
Chicken Yoghurt
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Grins, smiles and handshakes... but little else
Public Interest
Of course the G8 Summit doesn't matter. Any worthwhile agreements that will be made need not require a meeting: we all have email now.
Simple economics tell us that the best bargains take place between two parties, both of whom have something the other wants. They don't take place between 8 different parties in a hotel in Scotland. Moreover, if you really want to do something about war and poverty, you wouldn't dream of inviting along such backward-looking socialist regimes like the Russians and the French.
However, none of the participants will admit this. Instead, it will all end up with grins, smiles and handshakes, together with a signed document featuring phrases like global justice, eliminating poverty, spreading opportunity, fair trade, and bringing us all closer together.
The Guardian will write a long editorial welcoming these proposals while saying they haven't gone nearly as far as they had hoped, and Bono will say that the time for words is over, it's time for action.
Thus all the significant participants will be happier, and their existence just a little bit more satisfied.
Public Interest
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Blair, Bush and their pals
A Renga by The Sharpener
Does the G8 matter?
Empty rhetoric
A brief flurry of soundbites
in six languages
Long before the fun began
Faceless phone-calls fixed the end.
Leaders meet with Bob
Mingle, drink coffee, improve
Their golf handicaps,
And make caring faces for
Photo opportunities.
Tony wants more aid,
Free trade, fair trade, end to CAP.
But will it happen?
Teargas, mist over heather
Drowning cries of protestors
Subsidy, tariff
Five hundred kinds of ripe cheese
The price? Africa
Read some economics, George
Open markets means you too
Object from afar
And maybe reach world leaders
(oh, and Jacques Chirac)
"Agribusiness and cheap fuel
Don't vote, but count double"
Strange demonstration
In support of our leaders:
White armbands for Brown!
A million protesters!
When's the last time that happened?
Blair, Bush and their pals
Will get nothing done, but then
Neither will Geldof.
Billions gaze on and wonder
"Is this the best we can do?"
G8 seems only
An excuse for a pointless
Back-slapping w*nk-fest
People not government will
Make Poverty History
The Sharpener
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Slim pickings among the Mangoes
An Englishman's Castle
The G8 summit seems to me to be like one of those stultifying board meetings you asked to attend and then you realise all the decisions have already been taken else where, and you weren't in the know. So I don't expect much.
This G8 has the ability to be important in two areas I can see - Africa and Kyoto.
Africa - the whole summit has been hijacked in the media by the "Give them the fooking money" brigade. I hope to see the G8 adopt a policy of sensible aid linked to reform of policies and trade, but I think I will be disappointed as few of the leaders have the balls to not jump on the bandwagon as it rides through town.
And Kyoto - it is too much to hope that "son of Kyoto" will start to emerge as a sane economic sound policy.
But with the Mangoes (green on the outside, red inside) distracted by Africa debt there is the best slim chance of reason emerging for a long time.
An Englishman's Castle
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Matter? It's a matter of life and death
Lenin's Tomb
It matters because the G8 represents the largest and most powerful economies in the world - what it decides can make or break a generation, and the issues raised by it are in themselves important.
For instance, hunger kills 8,760,000 every year; approximately one billion children live in poverty; 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of five.
One cause of poverty is the Structural Adjustment Programme, which has filled corporate coffers and emptied the public purse. The obverse of this programme is debt: bad governments borrow sums from bad creditors, and their people repay it several times over.
Another is war – Britain has poured weapons into warring African states; similarly, the biggest recipients of US arms are Middle East tyrannies and Israel, which displaces funding for health, education and welfare into repayments for armaments.
This is not an occasion for Western narcissism and greasy statements comparing Blair and Brown to Lennon and McCartney. It is time for powerful nations to cease exploiting, invading and otherwise despoiling powerless nations.
That is why millions will want to protest against what is being done. It matters alright – it’s a matter of life and death.
Lenin's Tomb
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There's no-one else
Perfect.co.uk
The G8. These are the men that run our world. There is no-one else. They have the power to solve the problems we face. If they don't, it's us that suffer.
The issues that matter, climate change and global poverty, are on the agenda. And yet there is every reason to be cynical about anything meaningful being achieved.
If we don't deal with global warming as a matter of urgency, as our grandparents faced up to Hitler, we're condemning our grandchildren to a life of suffering, if they have a life at all. Currently, Bush will not even agree to a statement containing 'our world is warming'. We need stronger measures than this.
Aside from its effects on us, migration and instability, Global Poverty is a scar on all of our consciences. 30,000 children die every day because of it. Progress has been made on the issue of debt relief, but when examined, proves to be another way of the first world extorting the third's resources. As for trade justice, which would make the most difference, nothing is being done.
So does this G8 Summit matter? Yes. Desperately. If we watch idly while the world burns, deciding that we as individuals cannot make a difference, what will we tell our children? If not now, then when? If not us, then who?
by Robin Grant
Perfect.co.uk
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G8? No great harm, no great good either
Social Affairs Unit
The G8 leaders are likely to do no great harm and no great good either. But they aren't the point. They'll split the difference between their voters' reluctance to do much on climate change and aid, and the campaigners' longing that they do a huge amount. This is OK.
We know rather little about how good or bad climate change will be, or about the best way to deal with it. As for poverty, we know humanitarian aid is at best a last resort. What matters is that the poor get richer. We know that development aid has had very mixed results. If you want to give charity, or give up motoring or flying: get on with it. If you think these things ought to be done on a massive scale, persuade lots of other people. Don't forget to put these issues on the political agenda: that is, prove there are votes in them.
It's not the leaders who need persuading: it's their electorates. Campaigners are always trying to hijack democracy: maybe that's because they know voters have not been persuaded by their arguments.
by Richard D North
Social Affairs Unit
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Don't expect altruism from Blair and co.
The Skakagrall
Complex, urgent problems like climate change and Africa obviously require attention. The question is how to get results, rather than gestures, from international meetings. We shouldn't expect altruism from political leaders like Blair, Bush and Berlusconi. They have other priorities. The best we can hope for is that national governments can find an interest, or an advantage, in taking action.
The media (journalists and bloggers!) can influence the agenda if they are prepared to dig sufficiently into the detail of issues, and involve the public in discussions. When the public understand the real facts, they won't be satisfied by gestures. They won't for example be impressed by a government that allows an increasing amount of coal to be burnt in power stations, while lecturing other countries about reducing emissions.
Fortunately, it's no longer necessary for us to be so deferential to politicians on the assumption that they know more than we do. The balance has changed. Thanks to technology, the media now have access to information that rivals that available to politicians. We have more power in the relationship. We should use that power to hold politicians to higher standards - and more action.
The Skakagrall
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Applaud the symbolism at least
SJ Howard
The G8 is one of the few groups which truly has the power to change the world at the stroke of a pen. But, despite their huge wealth, they won’t.
Even if these largely Westernised countries offer enormous aid to those most in need, their inability to see the world from the eyes of the desperate will hinder any attempt to help. They are far too focused on Western cultures and ways of approaching problems to provide genuine solutions. They can’t even agree that condoms are the best way of preventing the spreading of HIV, despite mountains of evidence proving this, so how on Earth do they hope to tackle the far trickier problems of poverty?
But just because these countries can’t get together and change the world for the better doesn’t mean that we should write the G8 off as useless. However unproductive, argumentative, and ineffective the meetings are, we should celebrate the fact that at least these eight leading nations are co-operating and even holding meetings in an age of cynicism, distrust, and warfare.
Achievements aren’t everything. The symbolism is just as important. That’s why, now more than ever, the G8 summit really matters.
SJ Howard
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War of the Worlds, Gleneagles-style
G8 Summit Alternative Activities
War of the Worlds opens this Saturday and is not at your local cinema.
H.G. Wells was right: the Aliens have landed and they are taking over the world. The Aliens in this case are the G8 leaders from the world's leading neo-liberal nations deciding how they will carve up the world markets between them.
The G8 Summit will resolve nothing. Promises will be made with many, many caveats that will be impossible for the poorer nations to deliver on.
The resistance has begun and this resistance will be led by the poor and oppressed themselves not begging for help but taking control over their own destinies and economies as seen in Bolivia recently. The thousands of people turning up this weekend in Edinburgh and Gleneagles are demanding a different world in which people matter and the needs and abuses of modern corporate capitalism must be challenged for the sake of all humanity both poor and rich, both North and South. The message from those who will demonstrate is that a new world is possible in which 30,000 children do not die of starvation every day.
Our message is simple - the Aliens will be defeated and humanity will be free.
G8 Summit Alternative Activities
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