There can seldom have been a time when politicians yearned so much for their summer holidays. Westminster MPs, reeling from public outrage over their ludicrous expenses claims, must be thrilled that they can now pull up the drawbridges over their subsidised moats and watch their porn movies in peace. And after months of dealing with the financial and economic crisis, the political leaders of practically every nation must be feeling equally ready for a break. With the economy in such bad shape many politicians are taking short breaks in England so as to appease their voters.
But heads of government nowadays suffer just as much scrutiny of their choice of holiday as of any of their other decisions. Even when times were good, Tony Blair was much derided for the glamorous foreign trips he made at other people’s expense. In Tuscany he used to sponge off a very grand Italian nobleman, Prince Girolamo Guiccardini Strozzi, and in Barbados off an ageing British pop star, Sir Cliff Richard. It was only during the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001, with its disastrous consequences for tourism in Britain, that he decided it would be politically expedient to spend a short and miserable rain-soaked break in Cornwall between more congenial vacations in Mexico and France.
For most of his time as prime minister, Blair was popular enough to be forgiven his love of international high life. Gordon Brown, who could hardly be more unpopular, enjoys no such advantage. For the third year in a row, he and his family are playing it safe and taking their summer holiday in Britain. Last year it was Suffolk, the year before Dorset; this year it’s the Lake District. It is hard to imagine Brown mingling cheerfully with socialites in an Italian villa or a French chteau, but he loves the United States and might well have preferred a break at Martha’s Vineyard or Cape Cod if it had not been obvious that he would be excoriated for it. David Cameron is feeling confident enough to take short breaks in France and Greece, but Lord Mandelson, one of nature’s jetsetters, has said he will be staying in Britain this summer - chastened, perhaps, by the adverse publicity that surrounded his controversial sojourn last year in Corfu on the yacht of the Russian billionaire, Oleg Deripaska.
