CentreRight

A new Conservative policy on the Lisbon Treaty?

The European Scrutiny Committee has effectively backed 88% of the British people who wanted a say on the Lisbon Treaty and who have questioned, on grounds of democracy and law, how the Lisbon Treaty could ever have been enforced in this country without their consent. How can Britain now sign up to the Treaty, via Westminster’s hastily passed Bill, if that Treaty is to incorporate the ‘Irish Decision’ (guarantees made to the Irish), and the parliamentary Act that has passed the Treaty is now nonsense.

The British Government are wrong to claim that the Irish Decision on the Lisbon Treaty is legally binding, so it is a good to see that a parliamentary committee – the European Scrutiny Committee – is asking for a response on how this is all possible. View this page and this one. There is therefore good reason for the Conservatives to adopt this as part of their policy – we are in a new stage and a new policy is required.

Berlusconi's private life says something about his character

Good piece by Danny Finkelstein in The Times on why Berlusconi's "private" misbehaviours are relevant to his public status.  I posted a video on those misbehaviours earlier.

Forgive me if I re-post my own six point checklist (from April last year) for how we evaluate the public significance of private conduct:

1. Externalities: Private lives have public consequences.  Only today, for example, a judge is telling us that a "meltdown" in relations between parents and children is driving most of our greatest social problems.
2. Hypocrisy: It's hardly helpful that Al Gore preaches environmentalism to all of us but doesn't exactly practice it himself but hypocrisy is normally better than indifference. As I've blogged before, I'd prefer a politician who tries to be green in his private life than one who doesn't care about green issues at all.
3. Regret: I don't think it's quite enough for a politician to say that illegal drug use, however long ago, is an entirely private matter nor that the fact they have three families is none of our business.  Drugs and family breakdown are major causes of today's social problems.  We don't have a right to peer into the nooks and crannies of a politician's past or home life but I'd like to hear politicians regret drug use and regret father absence.
4. Consistency: Some people want to brush certain private behaviours under the carpet but are fascinated by others.  One friend of mine says that a person's sex life or drug history is completely irrelevant to their public persona.  She's also told me that she'll never vote for a Prime Minister who prays to God.
5. Generosity: Who amongst us has not failed in our private lives? We shouldn't have a culture that delights in personal failings and ends up discouraging good but imperfect people from entering public life.
6. Realism: Sometimes a person's devotion to public service has damaged their family life or driven them to certain excesses.  History has clearly taught us that flawed fathers or people who drink too much can be great Prime Ministers or Presidents."

"Are we doing it for our benefit or theirs?"

ConservativeHome is hosting regular reports from the Conservative social action project in Rwanda.  Andrew Mitchell MP submitted the first post on Monday.  Our Harlow candidate, Robert Halfon, is reporting on his personal blog.  Today we have these words from Nick Hurd MP, Shadow Minister for Charities; Social Enterprises and Volunteering.

I am writing this from one of four cyber cafes dotted down the main street of Butare - Rwanda's university town. The street is a constant stream of colour , noise and dust. There is a patient queue of people waiting to connect, communicate and learn. A few hours earlier, I was caked in white chalk and singing  "Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry" with a classroom of 42 primary school teachers who want to learn how to speak English. Through the broken window I could see my son marshall his class for some form of learning game. There are 11 of us teaching English in Butare across three schools, and a team of six English lawyers helping Rwandan institutions build a reliable system of law and contract. "Are we doing it for our benefit or theirs? " someone asked last night over a beer. All I know is that the people sitting in front of me want to learn, and I am enjoying teaching them. This country wants to move on from the horror of the genocide, and the UK is doing its bit to help them.

What is your lowest Labour moment?

The Daily Mail is in 100mph outrage mode this morning.

Its front page splash reports Labour Lord Foulkes' attack on General Sir Richard Dannatt.  Dannatt had dared to say that British troops in Afghanistan might need more troops.

Foulkes accused him of "giving succour to the enemy".

The Mail screams that Foulkes is not fit to shine the boots of servicemen.

This intervention is only the latest in a series of Labour low points.

What is your nomination for lowest of low points?

Mine would be the suggestion that 9/11 was a good day to bury bad news.

Christopher Hitchens pens a devastating profile of Gordon Brown

Two samples:

"On exactly what question of principle was Labour brought so low?  If you can’t answer that question, you are in good company. The main if not the sole “issue” appears to be the self-love and the self-pity of a prime minister—Gordon Brown—who has never won a general election or even a contested leadership election within his own party. He is in power only in order to be in power. He is in power only because he believes he has long had a natural right to be prime minister. For many years he waited as a resentful dauphin, swallowing his envy and bile. And then, like the fruit of the medlar tree, he went rotten before he was ripe."

"Fat Boy McBride, of course, was given the heave-ho as soon as his picknose activity was unmasked, and it was claimed, as is customary, that he had acted alone and without permission from his boss. I have asked around a good deal and have not met or heard from anyone—anyone—who believes that this cover story is true. Instead, and this in a party that used to pride itself on open debate, you hear dreadful whispers about carpet-biting, furniture-hurling spasms by someone whose contorted face reproduces the awful slobbering mask of a weak king."

Read the whole thing in Vanity Fair.

A wasted opportunity

Ben Caldecott is Head of Policy Exchange's Environment & Energy Unit.

Britain’s waste system has developed piecemeal over the past 150 years without ever being properly reformed. The waste we throw away contains potentially valuable resources that are now being left unused. We still send more than half of our waste to landfill, with more than 15.5 million tonnes of household waste being buried and left to rot in 2007-08. This runs the risk of fines of up to £366 million due to missing European Union targets as well as loosing out on the value of the resources left untapped in the waste stream

Our waste system achieves poor results because it is not designed for the challenges we face. On climate change the drive to recycle more has actually led to more carbon emissions from some materials. Food and biodegradable waste that if used could reduce carbon emissions and help deliver energy security by producing nearly 50% of the gas needed by households is not utilised. Moreover, in an age where people have less spare time, we now have to deal with the hassle of too many bins and overly complicated collections.

The latest report from the think tank Policy Exchange, “A Wasted Opportunity? How to get the most out of Britain’s bins” sets out how we can improve this situation. Our waste system can better protect the environment, extract more economic value and reduce the hassle people experience. It can also cost less to run - the reforms proposed in our report could cut household waste bills, currently around £100 per household per year, by up to half.

The Conservative message in 140 characters

Yesterday I Tweet-ed a request to set out the Conservative Party's core message in 140 characters (the maximum allowed by Twitter).  I got five replies (six, actually, but the sixth isn't suitable for a family website):

Can you do better? 

My offering; Conservatives will reward and sustain those who invent, work hard, teach the next generation and care for the needy.

Please try and keep to the 140 characters limit.

I'll Twitter the best tmrw morning and encourage it to be RT'd*.

* Re-Tweeted for the non-Twitterers out there!

Businesses are fleeing Britain thanks to Labour

Over the weekend, the Daily Telegraph carried the story that McDonald's are moving their European headquarters to Geneva next year because of the Brown/Darling tax hikes on business.

It's telling that it wasn't more widely reported, really.  Nobody's surprised, right..?

As the article makes clear, Maccas

joins other large US corporations that have based their European operations in Switzerland, including Kraft, Procter & Gamble, Colgate Palmolive and Yahoo. Google also chose Zurich for its European headquarters, despite having a large office in the UK capital.

They could be there for the fountain, I suppose.  Or maybe... maybe it's the tax.

Because after all, other

home-grown UK companies have also upped sticks in recent years, in search of more favourable tax regimes. The list includes Regus, the temporary office supplier, which has moved to Luxembourg, advertising giant WPP and pharmaceuticals company Shire which are both relocating their headquarters to Ireland, and Brit Insurance, which plans to move to the Netherlands. Investment company Henderson set up a new parent company in Ireland to pay less tax.

When will Labour learn that you can't slap business around without consequences?  Or that we NEED business in this country..?

Feel free to add other examples of businesses sensibly escaping Brown's Britain in the comments.

Andrew Mitchell MP: It's good to be back in Rwanda as Project Umubano enters its third year

This weekend saw the start of the third year of Project Umubano, the Conservative Party’s international development social action project. Around 100 volunteers have travelled to Rwanda to work on a range of development projects. The Project is led by Andrew Mitchell MP, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development, who sent us these exclusive reflections as the Project got underway.

19.20 Saturday 18 July, Kigali Airport, Rwanda
Touchdown! Our plane dips low onto the runway and we come to a halt. We all walk across the runway to the modernist concrete birds-nest of Kigali International Airport. We wait for the brown cardboard boxes, containing dictionaries, exercise books and football kit, to come around on the conveyor belt.

My mind drifts to the images I’ve seen of the airport in 1994: terrified people huddled around the blown-out windows of the arrivals area, hiding from the militia who were manning roadblocks on the roads to the airport. And international military planes taking off, carrying expats and their pets to safety – but leaving the Rwandans to their fate. From the moment you enter the country, you’re faced with grim reminders of the terrible events of 15 years ago. 

Eventually we count up all 68 of the boxes, pack them into our waiting truck, and head off in a fleet of buses and trucks into the dusty Kigali night. The hills all around twinkle with lights. I get a friendly greeting from the staff of the guesthouse where I’ve stayed for the previous two years. It’s good to be back.

0900 Sunday 19 July, Kigali Genocide Memorial
We make our way to pay our respects at the sombre memorial to the 1994 genocide. Today is the 15th anniversary of the 100th day of the genocide.  We stand for a minute in silence, thinking of the hundreds of thousands of people who lie buried here. I can’t think of anywhere in the world where so many bodies lie together.  Last year the memorial was attacked by a grenade-throwing extremist: for some, the ideology of genocide lives on.

Meet the BBC executive who says "we need to foster left-of-centre thinking"

I am reticent about joining choruses accusing the BBC of institutional bias against the Conservatives, not least because I worked there for four years and believe some of the Right-wing criticisms of the corporation to be unjustified sweeping generalisations. 

However, I was astounded to read this piece this morning, to which I was directed by DB in a comment.

Ben Stephenson, the BBC's drama commissioning controller (pictured), states unequivocally:

"We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking".

It may well be part of his job to commission thought-provoking drama, but to suggest that it should be specifically promoting thinking of a left-of-centre nature is absolutely outrageous.

Can we expect a retraction and apology?

The tough choices are getting tougher by the day

The other day, the IMF warned that the Budget deficit this year and next will be some 13% - taking GDP at £1.4 Trillions, that’s over £180 Billion each year.  Meaningless eh? How about £15,000 a household over these two years. That’s the real cost of Gordon Brown’s economic incompetence.  We’re in the middle of the bitterest recession in 60 years.  The IMF warn that we risk a double dip downturn as well as 100% debt to GDP ratio in five years if action is not taken. The possibility of a run on Sterling is included for good measure.

The upshot of Brown’s misrule is that public spending will have to be reined in sharply - some say by up to £100 Billion - to have a hope of stabilising the economy. It will take time to alter things so we can do more for less. Ken Clarke is being honest in warning of higher taxes. History shows that tax rises may will be necessary in the short term, just as Margaret Thatcher found back in 1979. And that’s just to stabilise the public finances and close the budget deficit.  Paying down the national debt is a whole different ball game.

Every day Gordon Brown stays in office, the earth is being further scorched to the tune of nearly £500 million.  And each day the medicine that will be required to put it right gets stronger and more distasteful. Trident, ID cards, NHS IT projects, carriers . . . at these levels of financial chaos, all the big projects must be in the mix for the difficult decisions.  What do Centre Right readers think are the projects we must keep and which should be let go?

Labour wants the people of Norwich North to vote for the fox

Mr Graeme Archer has just emailed me this:

9.45pm Graeme Archer has now sent me the reverse side of the leaflet:

Condemn, and, by that, love

Societies differ in their weaknesses.  Some are fanatical about honour, and engage in blood feuds for generations, murder their daughters or daughters-in-law if they act dishonourably, or even pursue honour to the point of public human sacrifice such as widow-burning or the votive offering of children.  Other societies become fanatically orthodox, persecuting the heterodox or, if the heterodox have sufficient numbers to constitute their own society, going to war over apparently very small matters.  Other societies are self-indulgent in their rituals, spending large proportions of precious resources on grand superstitious/religious totems or vast buildings and astonishing festivals for their secular leaders.

Agitprop deluxe

Last week the BBC broadcast a feature-length drama which drew a fair amount of praise from critics. Called Freefall, it was about the financial meltdown as experienced by a city trader, a mortgage broker and a young married couple who take on a new house way above their means.

Many conservatives get rightly exercised by the unbalanced treatment of political parties and the bias in news-reporting. But in the longer term, the worldview which underpins most of the non-news output of the BBC is far more insidious in the effect it has on our cultural drift.

Freefall was exceptionally well made, flawlessly acted and absorbing. But from a political point of view, it was utterly predictable; it could have been written ten, twenty or thirty years ago. And doubtess it will be made ten or twenty years hence. 

The trader and the broker were appalling characters with no redeeming qualities. Not only were their actions irresponsible; they were as individuals repulsive: empty, selfish and amoral. The young couple, on the other hand, were virtually saintly; the only weakness the husband could be accused of was naivety (which is, in this universe, hardly a defect at all.) 

The Hungarian Church which discriminates against couples for not having children

I have spent the last week on holiday in Budapest and must thank Tim here for covering the site for seven days in a row in my absence.

It is a beautiful city, the weather was glorious and it is well worth a visit, not only for the many famous spa baths but also to appreciate Hungary's architecture, food, culture and history. There are several especially interesting places to visit for those interested in the country's Twentieth Century history: the Memento Park, where some of the statues torn down in 1989/1990 have been preserved, and the House of Terror - a museum about the murderous and torturous activities of the state secret police under both fascist and Communist regimes, located in the very building which latterly housed its headquarters.   

But the one moment I thought I would blog about is linked to the debate which has been taking place on the site over the last few days about the recognition of relationship structures around children.

Visiting the splendid Matthias Church (pictured) on the Buda side of the city, I was surprised to find that my girlfriend and I were discriminated against for not having children.

As the tariff below shows, an adult pays 700 Forint to enter the church, meaning that we paid 1,400 Forint for our visit. However, the family ticket - which covers two parents (married or unmarried as far as I could tell) as well as their children - was a mere 1,200 Forint.

This was a first for me. Has anyone else ever come across examples of similar pricing structures?

The need for an Establishment

Here is a commonplace thought amongst Conservatives: in many areas of life, we cannot rely upon mere rules.  Rules, baldly stated, without organic systems of interpretation and application, are unlikely to be robust to changing circumstances.  Even if they aspire to include complex provisions, there will inevitably be unforeseen contingencies and the rule will ultimately do little more that bind in aspic the presumptions of the period in which it was written.

In contrast, we say, organic systems, embodying discretion, tradition, and culture, are more adaptable through time.  As a consequence, for matters such as the governance and particularly the constitution of a state, where unforeseen contingencies will be legion, organic processes are better than rules.

So far, so familiar.  But now pause to consider the corollary of this: an Establishment is vital to the health of a nation.

The least free places on Earth

Over at Foreign Policy, the people who bring you the annual Failed States Index have a powerful photo-essay feature on "the least free places on Earth".  Worth a look.

Boris' new broom helps clean up the Met

On listening to a televised discussion about the News of the World phone tapping scandal recently, I was struck by the general acceptance of the Metropolitan Police as an almost mendacious organisation whose word cannot be trusted. Amidst talk of whether or not the case represented a watershed for privacy law, not one of the guests (drawn from a range of political backgrounds) had any confidence in the thoroughness of the Met’s original investigation. Of particular note was the suspicion that ascertaining whether a crime had been committed was secondary to the importance of the Met maintaining good relations with the media.

Whether the guests’ analysis was fair or not, it is clear that even (perhaps especially) amongst the metropolitan middle classes, trust and confidence in the Met is still very fragile in wake of the gunning down of the Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes, and the subsequent catalogue of attempts to cover up what happened on that fateful day four years ago this week.

The televised discussion came just days after the Evening Standard revealed that Metropolitan police officers are currently facing 255 complaints of racism. Of these, 238 were submitted by the public and 17 are internal allegations of misconduct. The Chairman of the Black Police Association was quoted as saying that whilst he thought half the cases would amount to nothing (in general, only 3 in every 200 of all complaints against officers are ever upheld), it was still a significant amount ‘in a police force that is no longer supposed to be institutionally racist’.

Here lies the heart of the problem. In so loudly trumpeting its politically correct credentials in recent years, the Met has left itself wide open to accusations of discrimination. It is almost axiomatic that any public body making a song and dance of its commitment to equality finds itself similarly engulfed in controversy.

This issue relates directly to the deficit of trust in the capital’s police force. After the Macpherson report that followed the unsolved murder of Stephen Lawrence, the UK’s largest police force (31,000 officers strong) was sent into a cycle of soul searching that saw it set aside the pursuit of effective policing methods to concentrate on its external image and public relations. In troublesome inner city areas, the Met lacked the confidence aggressively and visibly to protect the innocent, with stop and search and patrols cast aside to concentrate instead on listening to residents and chasing diversity targets.

Burma VJ - a must see

This evening I was on a television programme discussing the new film Burma VJ. I had seen it first a few weeks ago, when I took part in a panel discussing the film after a pre-screening at the Frontline Club. Burma VJ went out yesterday in cinemas across the country, and details can be found here. It is the most extraordinary film. It puts the pettiness of so much of our domestic politics to shame, and serves as a reminder for how valuable our freedoms are, and how we should use the freedoms we have on behalf of those who are denied them. Watch Burma VJ, and then take action for freedom in Burma.    

Lest we forget...

In these times of great freedom for us, there are over half a million slaves in Mauritania.  Today.  Half a million.

Help the dying - or build a Next Stage Review?

A news item in today's Times provides a textbook example of the reasons why this Government has failed us so badly. A year ago Health Secretary Alan Johnson announced £286m extra health spending for palliative care (to honour a manifesto commitment).But nearly all the local health trusts surveyed recently by Help the Hospices said they not seen the money and that it had been lost in the system. If you want to know what happened to it, take a look at the Department of Health's first annual report on the 'End of life care strategy'' (62 full colour pages) which asserts that the initiative is off to a great start: it is establishing a National Implementation Advisory Board and a National Coalition to raise public awareness, has published a set of Quality Markers and core competencies, built monitoring into Operation Finance Guidance, tendered for a pilot of a national survey and begun the process to set up an Intelligence Network. It has also published no less than four separate strategic frameworks for SHAs, who have, the report claims, spent the first year "establishing the infrastructure which will support activity in the context of the Next Stage Review."

Does that sound to you like a good way to spend taxpayers' money? If the Government had given £286m - or even a quarter of that money - direct to the hospice movement, wouldn't that have been a better way to improve the lives of the terminally ill? As I pointed in a report last week for the Centre for Policy Studies, the "reality gap" between government rhetoric and real life in Britain today is dangerously wide, and nowhere more so than in our public services. Indeed, as this latest example shows, it's a matter of life and death.

Kamiński's credo

I am sure much will be written today about the election of Polish MEP Michał Tomasz Kamiński as the President of the new European Conservative and Reform Group in the European Parliament.

Mr Kamiński's election comes after Timothy Kirkhope's dignified and party-minded decision to withdraw from the race after a rank act of treachery from Edward McMillan-Scott.

Tim made reference to Mr Kamiński's maiden speech in the European Parliament last night but I thought it was worth quoting in full here:

"Polish is the language of over 40 million Europeans. Before our eyes, ladies and gentlemen, the division of Europe is coming to an end, a division whose sources date back to the Second World War. In these days of joy and emotion, it is fitting, therefore, to remember all those to whom the New Europe is indebted for its reunification. I would like to pay homage to the millions of my countrymen, soldiers and civilians, who were victims of the Second World War. Unfortunately, their blood, spilled on the fields of battle, only secured peace and prosperity for one part of Europe. I would like to pay homage to all those in Poland and Central Europe who, in the Stalinist era, sustained the flame of freedom on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Their inspiration was varied: from democratic socialism through liberalism to Christian-democracy and conservatism. Today we must also pay homage to the political prisoners and victims of the Stalinist terror, although many of them did not live to see a united Europe.

"As a Pole, I take particular pride in pointing out to the House that today’s celebrations would not be taking place were it not for the spiritual inspiration of our great fellow countryman, His Holiness John Paul II. He inspired Solidarity, the powerful social movement that led to the fall of Communism. President Lech Walesa, the leader of this movement became a symbol of the struggle for democracy and human rights for the world. He is our guest today in this Chamber. I also want to recall with pride that the leaders of my party, Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc [Law and Justice], as well as many of its members, were active participants in the movement for political independence that was Solidarity . At this time I would also like to express gratitude to two great leaders of the Western world whose steadfast attitude in the eighties helped break the fetters that bound the nations of Eastern and Central Europe. I would like to thank Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan. The great task now before us is to make certain that the fruits of the reunification of the continent are fairly divided among all the nations of the New Europe".

Opponents of the European Conservative and Reformist Group have queried the group's "credo" - and its vision for changing Europe.  From here on, I shall simply refer them to the above speech.

Good luck Mr Kamiński!

No more milkman

Blair and Brown always used to talk of “delivering”: government laid their presents at the doors of the little houses. The Cameroons understand that this isn’t the right way to think about the world anymore. People now go to the supermarket and get stuff for themselves.

PBA (the post-bureaucratic age model) is a truly a ‘big idea’, worthy of being the controlling idea for a new government. Trouble is, to put it gently, it lacks a certain populist edge. It won’t win a single vote. It can even lose you votes, when you tell people that the milkman is no longer coming down their street. Maybe that’s no big deal, but what does matter is: how can you make it part of the mandate? This is potentially a big problem: to win a campaign, you need to show you have that fire in the belly to make things better for people, that you are a leader, that you are on the side of the people and that you will change things for them. The milkman returns. Confusion.

A possible solution is to make PBA clearly a business policy. This isn’t fair to the true breadth of the idea, because it applies just as much to Michael Gove’s education policy. But it’s as a business policy that PBA is best understood, and this has the strong advantage of separating it from the more traditional themes of a campaign, without any dishonesty. Nobody expects government to turn itself into a Google-style piece of infrastructure overnight. But relations with business should certainly change the moment Cameron enters Number 10.

Below is a piece I wrote on the subject for the booklet of the “ConservativeIntelligence” conference.

sola scriptura

On this morning’s PoliticsHome, in the TimesOnLine links, link 10 was to the Times leader entitled “Honest to God”.  The article was about the impending abandonment by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America of its moratorium on consecrating practicing homosexual bishops.  The contention of this article was that “The consecration of homosexual bishops is a matter of justice.”  Since the break-up of the Anglican communion, which will be the almost immediate consequence of these events, is of obvious political interest, it is clear why PoliticsHome carried the story.  I want to explain why I think the Times has it quite wrong.

Note that I don’t propose to go too much into homosexuality in this essay, since the Times leader does not do so, correctly identifying that the issue is not practicing homosexuality per se (which is clearly, obviously, unambiguously, and in all cultures at all times forbidden by the Bible).  Instead, the Times sets out the position that must be adopted by those advocating the consecration of practicing homosexual priests and bishops and the related disputed practice of providing church blessings of same sex civil unions.  Here is what it says:

Churches that insist on the inerrant word of Scripture, notably the Pauline epistles, will not accept the consecration of open homosexuals. Yet social attitudes to homosexuality have shifted radically in the past generation. The sources of Christian inspiration are diverse. They do not derive only from a private response to Scripture.

This passage correctly identifies that what is at stake here is the status of the Bible, and in particular the Protestant doctrine known as “sola scriptura.”

Obama is right on Africa - and perhaps he is the only man who can advance this agenda

As I detailed on this site, I didn't want Obama to win last year's Presidential election.  I was sad when he did so.  I have linked disapprovingly to his economic agenda.  Moments in which I've respected him or his actions have generally been caused by his being framed in a favourable light by less impressive Democrats (like his Vice President), or when he has reversed clear wrongs, like Guantanamo.  But his recent speech in Ghana on Africa and the continent's politics and future was extremely important and, if it is to bear fruit in policy terms, extremely promising.  I know that it was a couple of days ago now but I don't think that anyone else on CentreRight had mentioned it yet so I wanted to flag it and point to a few tremendous powerful and tremendously true passages:

It is easy to point fingers, and to pin the blame for these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense bred conflict, and the West has often approached Africa as a patron, rather than a partner. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants.

In my father's life, it was partly tribalism and patronage in an independent Kenya that for a long stretch derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is a daily fact of life for far too many.

...

Development depends upon good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa's potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans.

You can read more excerpts here (from which I lifted the above) or read or listen to the whole thing here.

My feeling, if this manifests itself in a consistent policy platform, is that, just as only Nixon could go to China, as anyone to the left of him would have been torn apart by the right, perhaps only Obama can speak truth to Africa - as anyone less liberal, and without his personal narrative, would be torn apart by the liberals.