What Is The Point Of Baroness Ashton?
Ed Staite wonders what useful service is performed by the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy.
2 Aug 2011, 19:20
Baroness Ashton: Pointless
What did seem odd was who the BBC took as their talking head in their short package. In a situation as severe as we are currently seeing in the Middle East, with hundreds of civilians dying, I would expect to have seen the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Baroness Cathy Ashton, outlining why this action was necessary and why it was the right course to stop the violence. Instead, delivering the obligatory sound bite, we saw Michael Mann who was described in the BBC’s caption as an ‘EU spokesman’.
A tiny bit of digging reveals that Mr Mann is Baroness Ashton’s official spokesman. He is an ex-journalist who has worked for the Financial Times, Reuters, Bloomberg amongst others. He has previously also worked for Neil Kinnock. According to reports Mann was given the job spinning for Ashton as she was so terrible and needed to sort out her communications. As someone in the same trade I have no direct criticism of Michael Mann other than to ask why it was he who popped up on my television rather than his boss?
Baroness Ashton is the world’s highest paid female politician and yet she has to get someone else – some might argue someone more competent – to share her thoughts with the world. Once again the question has to be asked: what is the point of Baroness Ashton?
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Ed Staite
Ed Staite is the managing director of Staite Communications and is a former Conservative press officer.
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Comments (8)
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None, she is keeping the seat warm for Mandleson
02/08/2011 20:17Exactly she is taking the Peter Principle to an extreme I have not seen before.
02/08/2011 20:27Spot-on. She's just another socialist drone/clone much loved by the BBC.
02/08/2011 23:19The irony is that Brown gave her that plum job, but he finds himself unable to get a similar lifeboat position.
03/08/2011 08:50As well as being a living example of the Peter Principle, Baroness Ashton is also proof of the cock-up theory of politics.
When the EU set out on the process of appointing a President and a High Representative, nobody would have had her in mind for either position. That she ended up getting the job was down to the following chain of circumstances:
(i) Tony Blair wanted the presidency and embarked on a semi-public campaign for it.
(ii) France and Germany blocked the former PM's claims and the job went to Herman van Rompuy.
(iii) Having lost out on the presidency, Britain had to be given the High Representative's job as a consolation prize.
(iv) Gordon Brown offered the job to David Miliband, who refused it. (I wonder if he now regrets this?)
(v) Peter Mandelson wanted the job, but Gordon Brown vetoed his appointment as he wanted him by his side in the Downing Street bunker.
(vi) And so we came at last to Cathy Ashton, third choice for a job that Britain had never really wanted anyway. A bit like the final episode of Yes Minister when Hacker unexpectedly becomes PM after all the other candidates fall by the wayside.
03/08/2011 09:02Sadly Paul's analysis is utterly on the money. It demonstrates even further what a farce the whole thing is. If you examine Cathy Ashton's CV it is a career in Quangos and the fringes of the Labour Party - no wonder people are so unimpressed. If only she could be the last person to hold this position...
03/08/2011 10:10Paul,
Thanks for the break down on the time line of the events which led to Cathy Ashton appointment. It's very enlightening.
It's sad that the EU's Representative for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy can not even fulfill there duties by publicly representing the EU. After all, when the world looks to the EU for matters on foreign affairs & security policy, we think of Cathy Ashton and look to her. If she is unwilling to be the public face of the EU on matters relating to foreign affairs & security policy, then she should step down.
The EU doesn't need another puppet, but rather an individual who can stand there ground and do whats best for the union. A person who is willing and wanting to be the public face of the EU.
I think it's time for an individual with a political appointment to a military or intelligence position in there resume background to fill her position.
04/08/2011 16:30She's another Labour waste of space.
05/08/2011 01:33