The current High Commissioner of Malawi is due to leave at the end of next January.
Jack McConnell, former First Minister of Scotland, and the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, denied that he had been given the job as a consolation prize by Gordon Brown after Labour's election defeat in Scotland, to encourage him to step down as Labour leader at Holyrood so that Brown's protegee Wendy Alexander could be imposed as leader on the parliamentary Labour party in the Scottish parliament. His majority in his Motherwell and Wishaw constituency was slashed from over 9000 to under 6000 as the SNP took power last year. (The other Scottish MP for the same constituency who sits in the Westminster parliament has a majority of 15,000 - the whole area should be solid Labour.)
Mr McConnell confirmed he would leave the parliament before taking up his new position but at Westminster parliamentary committee hearings on why a senior diplomatic post had been given to someone from outside the diplomatic service, he stated: "I don't have an expectation that this new position will start early next year or even at all next year. I think it will be determined by the interests of the UK government." He said also: "I can give the committee an assurance that the starting date would not be influenced by trying to pick a particular date for a by- election,""Circumstances could change over the next few months that might lead to a different skill set being needed for a certain period of time," he said. The Foreign Office needed the scope to put in a temporary High Commissioner.
John Horam (Conservative) : "The only thing I can think of is that the government wants some wriggle-room when it comes to holding a by-election."
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5 comments:
Look at where Malawi is on the map. It doesn't share a coastline with Uganda in case William Hague/John Horam asks.
Why should I need to look at a map to know the whereabouts of Malawi?
On a point of order, Ma'am, the High Commissioner OF Malawi is a Malawian, resident in London. The High Commissioner TO Malawi is a Brit, resident in Lilongwe.
No doubt the FCO will be delighted to have yet another useless cuckoo in its nest; but the host government has to accept/agree the nomination of the head of mission before the incumbent can take up his/her posting, so there is still hope for our put-upon diplomats...
Oh dear Nomad, first I can't spell, now I can't proof read. You're right.
I don't think there is an objection from Malawi, rather from the Labour party managers who seem to have a no by-elections rule in place.
"Circumstances could change over the next few months that might lead to a different skill set being needed for a certain period of time," he said. The Foreign Office needed the scope to put in a temporary High Commissioner."
This is more worrying.
I know it used to be Rhodesia and Nyasaland round there but its not ideal for mounting an operation against Zimbabwe when there are a couple of other countries in the way.
Unless the Leader has maniac plans to reinstate British Central Africa - one can just hear the words rolling off his tongue, along with Scottish missionaries and the reinstatement too of the Rhodesian Federation.
He's quite weird enough to be associated with some operation against a 'failed state'.
There is a very disturbing part of the New Labour Project concerned with a New International Relations in which former imperial glories and advantages could be reasserted under various guises - war against terror, positive action against undemocratic and cruel regimes, policing failed states, as well as commercial interventions to manipul ate markets and essential trade.
Iraq was the first essay in this, as a British colonial possession lost. It wasn't just support for our American allies and the special relationship.
Lots of goodies to be had from wars of primitive accumulation in southern and central Africa.
Mussolini intended to restore Rome's imperial boundaries and set about doing so too. New Labour is just as unpleasant.
Yes, HG, if McConnell goes to Lilongwe he will be going to a small town in the middle of nowhere, which of course may be the idea! I hope he likes fishing, because that is about all there is to do, but the lake is only an hour to the east of town.
Following the break up of the Rhodesian Federation, Nyasaland and the two Rhodesias came under the purview of half baked socialist ideologists; Kaunda in N Rhodesia (now Zambia), Mugabe in S Rhodesia (now Zim) and Hastings Banda in Nyasaland (now Malawi).
The history of the region is fairly well known as the world watched Kaunda, despite getting the riches of the copper mining area, gradually run Zambia into the ground (although, according to the word on the street, he was reputed to be personally worth several hundred million dollars), Mugabe to turn a once beautiful and highly prosperous Zimbabwe into a complete basket case, and Banda to just walk/ride around in glorious splendour dressed in tailcoat and top hat as his country plummeted into ever deeper poverty. It is reputed that his gang of minders kept the real state of the country from him, showing him only specially prepared farms and well stocked maize silos etc, and that he lived in complete ignorance of the abuses the citizens suffered.
When the Brits were in charge in Malawi, their principal administrative centre was Zomba, a pleasant little town in the south east of the country. The commercial centre was, and remains, Blantyre, also in the south and just a few miles from the Mozambique border (and a three hour drive across to Harare). The main town in the north is Mzuzu, the jumping off and filling up point for all points north to the Congo and East Africa.
That brief description reveals that there was nothing of note between the north and the south of the country and so Banda in his wisdom decided to build a completely new town there and call it the capital. It is roughly half way between the two pre-existing main centres.
Having complete control over the populace, every last one of whom had to buy a party card (no card, no maize ration) he set about wasting every last cent of the country's money, building a huge palace in the middle of nowhere, on the edge of Lilongwe, for himself and his cronies (no need of anything so inconvenient as authority from, say, a parliament!)using all the finest materials money could buy from all around the world. The finished result really is something to behold, although for many years until his death about 15 years ago it was strictly off-limits to the plebs and carefully guarded by armed troops.
He also spent untold sums on a huge boarding school, known locally as the Eton of Africa, which enjoyed virtually unlimited funding and could thus afford very high quality teaching staff and extensive facilities. The school's results, both academic and sporting, were always excellent and many well to do families from the entire region sent their offspring to be educated there. It is a while since I last passed through that area, so the place may now be somewhat run down from its glory days. But in its heyday it was a magnificent sight.
Following intense international pressure in the early 1990s, Banda, who by now was himself well into his 90s and very feeble, succumbed and called the first election since independence - which of course his party lost. Unlike his neighbour to the southwest, he at least had the dignity to retire gracefully and live out his final years in comfort.
Malawi remains one of the poorest countries in Africa and has also cruelly been the victim of extremely unfriendly weather over recent years which has played havoc with their efforts to grow their own maize. The country will remain aid-dependent for some while yet.
I am not sure a politician, should he ever take up his appointment there, who is allegedly incapable of running a market stall will have much effect at ameliorating any of this.
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