Cutting the Gordian Knot

Wow. Here I am trying to figure out how to give a good kick in the arse to my humdrum mid-level policy career, and there Gordon Brown is, trying to decide whether to be Prime Minister of the U.K. or Director of the I.M.F.

These people at the top step in and out like they’re at Lannigan’s ball. Mary Robinson has never been forgiven for ditching the Irish presidency early to become U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. And Horst Kohler just left the I.M.F. on a day’s notice to pursue his presidential ambitions in Germany. Even when I was temping at Railtrack, I never left a job before finishing out the week.

Finding a replacement for Horst will be trickier than phoning in a starving grad student who can type 90 wpm (yes, 90, in warm weather. and I make quite decent coffee. offers?). By tradition it has to be a European, but one the White House can stomach. The Germans have had their turn and the French are on an extended visit to Coventry (though Haiti may change that.). Neither would be keen on having a Brit in the job (dogs in the manger), so we’ll probably end up with a dreary technocrat just like the last one.

Meanwhile, the musical chairs dance of top European jobs is getting into a whirl. The current cabinet of EU commissioners retires this summer and the accession countries will have their coming out ball in the autumn. Cue some blushing debutantes and plenty of Becky Sharps.

The outgoing commissioners have full dance cards too. Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Anna Diamantoupoulou, chucked in her job last month to get stuck into an election campaign in Greece. Margot Wallstrom, Commissioner for the Environment. took over Diamantoupoulou’s job on top of her own, and instantly left on a winter holiday. Erkki Likaanen of DG Info Soc is plunging back into Finnish politics and hoping for the top job. Chris Patten is double- jobbing as head of DG External Relations and Chancellor of Oxford, and his Brussels appearances are increasingly few and far between. And then you have the true blue Type As, like Frits Bolkestein who’s desperate to move up from D.G. Internal Market to the uber-ministry D.G. Competition.

And there’s the original unknown quantity, David Byrne, who’s achieved far more in Consumer Affairs than most of the talking heads in the Cabinet. Byrne was Ireland’s second or third choice (after others had been disqualified ), and was nominated so late that the high profile D.G.s were already taken. But he has been such an effective commissioner that the world really is his oxter, and the Commission has almost forgiven us for Padraig Flynn.

Figuring out what to do after a term as a commissioner is still quite delicate. The ambitious majority struggle to reinsert themselves into national politics, often being pushed several rungs down the ladder by the stay-at-home politicians who sent them away in the first place. A generation or two of decent Tories (‘Well, if you like Europe so much, why don’t you just go/stay there?’) have struggled with this one.

But anyway, back to Gordon Brown. I imagine he’s only letting the story of the I.M.F’s interest be known to remind TB how difficult Brown would be to replace. Today’s Guardian seems to think that Patricia Hewitt is favourite to succeed the man with a brain the size of a planet. Putting Hewitt – who has a magpie’s eye for bright new initiatives but can hardly shock and awe the intellectual heavyweights – into the Treasury would just be cruel. Remember how downtrodden and despised by his own civil servants poor Nigel Lawson was?

But if he is seriously thinking about changing jobs, Brown may be at one of those crossroads that life can seem to lead inexorably towards; one where each choice represents a competing set of self-image and ambition.

Brown at the IMF could be that rare thing; a visionary with the clout to get things done. Think what he could do to re-structure developing country debt. This is a man who stays up at night thinking precisely how to use the levers of government policy to increase social justice. This is a man who can put a hopeful glint in the eye of an economist. His global impact could be phenomenal, and do the most to help the people who need it the most. But it would also be diffuse.

Whereas Brown at No. 10 could finally run the show. Although his micro-managing Treasury already has unprecedented control over policy minutiae in almost every other ministry, Prime Minister Brown would run foreign policy as well. And it’s now or never.

Either way, of course, he’ll still have to kowtow to the White House.

Anyway, putting aside the perks and the power, all these people are struggling with how and where to make the most contribution (and further their careers); in national or international politics. Nationally, you can have a more immediate impact and much more contact with the people you’re actually serving. At the EU or further afield, there may be more overall influence, but it’s diluted and deflected through more layers of implementation.

That’s globalisation for you. And the high-flyers aren’t the only ones trying to decide…