"His career had indeed been durable, but five days later it turned out not to be indestructible. Mandelson's speech, and the off-the-record Q&A, illustrated why Mandelson had been appointed to the role in the first place. He had a self-confidence and style that made him a big hitter in Washington at a time when a British Labour government could easily have found itself largely shunned or, even worse, ignored as irrelevant."
"So at Ditchley, and in a previous speech in August to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs he spoke of Trump as a consequence and not a cause of the current upheaval in the world order. Trump's skill, he said, had been to read the signals coming from those let down by globalisation. It was Davos Man bowing down to the force of populism. Much of his central theme was about the technological threat posed by China being the great challenge of the 21st century."
Donald Trump's re-election revealed elites disconnected from modern fed-up electorates. The UK cannot assume the special relationship with the United States will endure and must keep earning Washington's respect by supplying science and technology and by demonstrating a willingness to fight alongside the US. Trump's emergence is a consequence of globalisation's failures rather than their cause, with his political skill lying in reading signals from those left behind by economic change. The surrender of Davos-style elites to populism reflects broader political upheaval. The technological threat posed by China is the great strategic challenge of the 21st century.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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