British MP Alistair Burt Meets With Political Science Students

The long-standing cultural and political alliance between America and the United Kingdom remains strong, a member of the British Parliament told Guilford political science students recently.

Alistair Burt, MP, a Conservative Party representative since 1983, said that his country was still the United States’ “best friend” on the international stage, despite occasional policy disagreements. For that, he credited the personal relationships between heads of government like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and, more recently, George W. Bush and Tony Blair.

“They actually liked each other,” Burt said of Bush and Blair. “They were genuine friends, which surprises people… The relationship between Bush and Blair was, I think, the third most important post-war relationship” after that of Roosevelt and Churchill and Reagan and Thatcher, whom Burt called “intellectual soul-mates.”

Burt also shared the U.K. and European Union perspective on President Barack Obama. Citing world opinion on climate change, global poverty and the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Burt said that prior to last year’s election “The world was shutting down on America.”

“The election was a hugely significant event for the world,” he said. “You got your decision right, in terms of the world [opinion].

“The world doesn’t function without an America that isn’t engaged,” he said.

Burt said that, so far, the world holds a favorable opinion of Obama due to his re-opening of diplomatic channels and major speech in Cairo, but that the course of the war in Afghanistan (where the U.K. has between 8,000 and 9,000 troops committed) may affect that.

Burt answered student questions about the use of technology and social networking tools in British elections, which are less-utilized than in last year’s American campaigns; the U.K.’s National Health System; and financing in Parliamentary campaigns. He compared his campaigns – where his fundraising is capped at $24,000 – with the 2008 American presidential campaign spending.

He also strongly encouraged the assembled students to take active leadership roles in their communities and governments. “We don’t make it easy for young people like you to get involved,” Burt said. “I think that good government for people is of huge importance, because if people of integrity turn away from it, who does that leave?”

Sept. 15, 2009