By Bagehot
THIS is not about me, it’s about you. That—riskily—has been David Cameron’s message to the Russian government here in Moscow today, setting out, in coolly rational terms, why it would be in Russia’s own best interests to modernise its economy and political system, enforce business contracts consistently and generally hew to the rule of law.
Bagehot is in the Russian capital, watching the first visit by a British prime minister since 2006. It has been possible for some months now to spy the emerging outlines of a Cameronian world view. At its emotional core is the prime minister’s brand of optimistic pragmatism (or pragmatic optimism, take your pick). This, as set out by Mr Cameron in a string of speeches around the world over the past year, amounts to a broad hunch that the future belongs to countries that are open and politically responsive to their populations, that globalisation and the rise of big emerging economies need not be a zero-sum game for Britain and other status quo powers and that it is worth trying to reason (politely) with authoritarian regimes.
