As you read this column, think of me as I spend a week in Rwanda along with forty assorted Tory MPs, candidates and volunteers. They have each forked out the best part of £1,000 to spend a fortnight on a VSO backed scheme to do good works in a country still ravaged by the after effects of the genocide of the 1990s in which nearly a million people died.

 

Around a dozen Tory MPs, including three members of the Shadow Cabinet, are helping to build a school, advise the Rwandan government, teach English, give football coaching and much more besides.

 

The project is intended to leave a lasting legacy of links between communities in Rwanda and in the UK through establishing school twinning arrangements, ongoing mentoring, continuing medical involvement and a better studying and living environment for some of Rwanda’s orphans.

 

Naturally, the national media have given a huge cynical raspberry to the whole venture. On Monday David Cameron will arrive in Rwanda to spend two days working on the project and meet with government officials. Some journalists have derided this as just a photo opportunity, but it is far more than that. Political leaders use trips like these to inform themselves about world affairs and the problems of other countries. It is the only way to do it.

 

When Margaret Thatcher was elected leader of the Conservative Party she was illiterate in foreign affairs. She had barely ever left ‘Blighty’ apart from the odd skiing holiday in Switzerland. And yet only fifteen years later she left office having contributed a huge amount to winning the Cold War. She learnt her foreign policy trade by visiting as many different countries as she could during her four years as leader of the opposition.


David Cameron must do the same. Foreign policy rarely wins many votes, but the country wants to be confident that its Prime Minister won’t embarrass them abroad. That’s a large part of the reason Neil Kinnock never became Prime Minister.

 

 

This week I was up for an award, having been shortlisted for the House Magazine/Sky News Political Commentator of the Year. As I was up against the BBC’s Nick Robinson, Jackie Ashley from The Guardian and Spectator editor Matthew D’Ancona I realised that I wouldn’t win. However, as the evening progressed I began to realise how people feel at TV awards ceremonies. I would love to have won, but as the presentation of the award dawned it struck me that I hadn’t got a clue what I would say if I actually did the unthinkable and won. All the other acceptance speeches had been erudite, funny and insightful. I sat there thinking I might be about to make a prize Charlie of myself. I needn’t have worried. Nick Robinson was the winner and made the kind of speech I would have love to have made. It was only when he sat down that I realised that all the award winners had been told they had won in advance. So that’s why they were all so eloquent!

 

 

 

So if you lived in London would you vote for Boris Johnson as mayor? There’s no doubt that he has a cross-party appeal which rivals that of Ken Livingstone, but what Boris has got and Ken hasn’t is an ability to reach out to people who aren’t normally interested in politics – especially young voters. But he faces a tricky challenge. People love Boris partly because he is, well, shambolic. It’s part of his charm. But he needs to convince people he is also a serious politician who knows when to act the fool and when to be serious. He must resist the blandishments of his advisers to lose the buffoonery entirely, as it’s part of who he is. Voters see through politicians when they try to be something they patently aren’t, as Gordon Brown is soon to find out.

 

************

Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews has announced this week that he is standing down at the next election. He's someone I have always admired for his willingness to speak his mind, even if I haven't always agreed with him. His constituency of Medway is an ultra marginal, which Bob actually announced he had lost last election night, when in fact he had held on by a couple of hundred votes. I imagine the local Labour Party will be gutted, as his departure makes it all the more winnable for the Conservatives next time around.

 

Quite a few of Labour’s awkward squad have announced they are leaving Parliament at the next election, but one who refuses to hang up is parliamentary boots is Norwich North Labour MP Ian Gibson. He told me this week he would definitely be standing again. Fifteen years ago I helped run the campaign against him at the 1992 General Election. We threw everything we had at him and as a result Tory MP Patrick Thompson retained his seat by a painfully close 266 votes. A last minute leaflet exposing Ian’s far left dim and distant past seemed to do the trick, although Patrick swears to this day that he would have had a majority of 2,000 if we hadn’t put out that leaflet. We shall never know. But whatever our political differences, Ian has always been a delight to talk to and chew over the latest political developments. Sometimes he even manages to make me feel guilty for the leaflet. But only sometimes…