David Cameron: the Boys Own ham-based robot was almost surpassed | Zoe Williams

HHow much have you actually worked with David Cameron since he became Foreign Secretary in November? I still get a disconcerting strobing effect, all the alternative futures that could have been: no-Brexit, no-Boris Johnson, no-austerity and social divide, without that rosy-faced 21st century Duff Cooper. disguises of the century, and the incomprehensible number of people who have not cast a single glance at this face and have not run a kilometer and a half. So I find it quite difficult to watch.

As he travels through the American media, talking about Ukraine and Gaza to morons (Fox News) and sensible centrists (CNN), the perspective he seeks shifts somewhat. You know what they say about America, that it went from barbarism to decadence without an intervening period of civilization (no offense, Fox News!)

Cameron went from being a flabby, hurried young man to an older statesman, without the interval of an ordinary middle-aged statesman; did he ever really govern? Was it ever really real? Well, he had to be. Because all this happened.

He had just met Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, which he couldn't say much about because it was a private meeting and the American anchors from all the networks nodded in delight when he said that. I think it sounds sassy but quaint when a classy person says it, but he said this to CNN's This Morning: What I mean is (ah, the memories of Cameron saying, “Let me to be clear on the point I am making, hissing “loaded words, the slogan of a man who never asked himself if he was interesting) is that I think deeply in the interests of Britain, but also in that of the United States, which Trump will not win in Ukraine.

We can get to the question of why not if you really think it's necessary, but what a profoundly strange thing to say. Win what? The American elections? Because if he doesn't win, it's hard to see how he will win anything in Ukraine. But if he wins the US election, it is he, rather than the British Foreign Secretary, who will unfortunately decide what their interests are.

Trump, you will probably recall, wants the Ukrainians to cede Crimea and the Donbass border regions to Vladimir Putin in exchange for not getting shot at again. Cameron is probably right, this would not only be bad for our European security, our adversaries around the world, whether Iran, China or otherwise, would learn a lesson from the fact that we are not alongside our allies. And, OK, the next part is a little soft, but there's a good chance there is. will there would be a risk of additional aggression and additional danger in our world.

Still, I worry that Cameron really thinks geopolitics is a cool, rules-based game in which you might have a weird leader who huffs and puffs, but all the other players, nice guys, will step in and say, screw it. one piece: No. , you can not do that.

His language is pure Boys Own adventure, the bravery of Ukrainians, Europe and America standing together and standing up against tyrants. Of course, he's not swimming in very complicated waters (Trump, for comparison, said Russia should do whatever it wants to NATO countries that don't spend enough on defense), but Cameron doesn't get a deep sense of security. which is essential when listening to a sensible adult, endowed with complete faculties, anchored in reality.

He was introduced as Britain's most senior diplomat, which made him look rather cute, as if he had won his title on a TV quiz show Britains Got Diplomats. I'm not sure they take us extremely seriously as a nation. It's conceivable, because of everything that's happened.

Fox News took a different route, as they say, with a question that you would call stupid, except that's what they want you to think, so you play into their hands, except what are you going to do, without call it stupid? It's still stupid. What did Cameron think of London, our London, where the streets are overrun by Hamas supporters and the Jewish community describes a country that has become almost unrecognizable, in terms of its tolerance of this?

Cameron's face is notoriously difficult to read. Caitlin Moran once said he looked like a robot made of ham. But this must surely have irritated him internally: that's what half of his party says 24 hours a day.

This is the means by which they threaten the right to protest and the tactic they use to deflect any serious consideration of the situation in Gaza; that it cannot be a massacre because Hamas and anyone in their right mind contesting this massacre must love Hamas, and that British Jews are terrified of their own country because the streets are lined with amateurs of Hamas. Everyone knows that's not true, but, as long as it's useful, that's what many conservatives will pretend to think.

Did this give the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who himself mourn the bloodshed, a pause of a second, to be confronted with this live on the air? Did it make him think how far the Conservative Party had come, how national unity had been destroyed, her a lot, right? Did he stop and question his role in all of this?

It's really hard to say that there are robots, but he twisted it very well, emphasizing all the freedoms, emphasizing the rule of law, emphasizing that Benjamin Netanyahu also had to respect the laws, in particularly with regard to civilians.

The British and Americans did not provide aid to the Germans during World War II, the presenter replied.

Britain's top diplomat did not honor this.