All packed for China
Passport in hand, iPod loaded, Bluffers Guide To The Emerging Economies ready to read. I am on standby for the prime minister’s trip to China and India.
No trip to these fascinating countries can fail to be interesting but recent political trips here have been truly memorable. Who can forget Tony Blair's first prime ministerial trip to China in 2003 on which he learnt - midair - of the death of David Kelly?
Or his second trip to Beijing in 2005 when Cherie sang When I'm 64 with a group of bemused Chinese students? Or Gordon Brown's high level diplomacy in the "in the Big Brother house?" Anglo-Indian row.
PS: I note that the PM did not, after all, use the ‘N word’ yesterday and suggested that the search for a private sector solution might yet take a few more weeks
I'm 
Comments
Perhaps while in China Me Robinson can find out why are they doing so well in the global market place, considering most enterprises are state owned and/or centrally managed i.e. nationalised. Maybe it could be due to quality management with sound busness plans, unlike Northern Rock.
'All hail the great leader' still dithering about the Rock. Perhaps he could offer it up to the Chinese like his predecessor offered Rover... and then the Chinese let it go bust first before paying peanuts for the bits.
"Who can forget"? I had, long ago. I wish you had not reminded me of those grotesques.
1: Or it could be the low wages and virtual absence of day-to-day red tape. Plus they are hardly 'centrally managed', which implies some kind of communist committee deciding on everything. Far from the truth.
Rather the Chinese story reflects the effect of sudden economic freedom being allowed to flourish among an enterprising and hard-working people, backed with a truly enormous inflow of foreign investment.