Gordon Brown's white elephants, Paul Rogers

Paul Rogers — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:47:49 +0100

The current media and political attention in Britain is focusing on two main issues. The first is the large-scale flooding across extensive areas of England west of London, which some commentators see as further evidence of the early impacts of global climate change on the daily lives of millions of citizens living in one of the richest countries on the planet.

The second is the announcement in parliament on 24 July 2007 by prime minister Gordon Brown of proposals designed to increase national security, of which the most eye-catching for the media is the creation of a new, specialised border-security force.Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since 26 September 2001The two issues are related, though in ways not immediately obvious. Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is by referring to a third issue, which has received far less attention from the media and political classes: the major defence plans the British government and defence establishment are now implementing, whose effects will - in the best tradition of Atlanticist cooperation - tie Britain even more closely to the United States for the next few decades.

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Gordon Brown's white elephants, Paul Rogers