David Cameron and Britain's public diplomacy

David Cameron showed great dynamism by speaking directly to BBC's global audience.

David Cameron

It was great to see the British prime minister, David Cameron walk into the BBC studio in London and take questions from the audience all over the world in its popular global show: The world have your say.

Mr. Cameron’s ease and humility on answering questions on a range of topics like Syria, the role G8 in Afghanistan, aid and poverty reduction was simply amazing,

It's difficult to get a prime minister of a major country to be rallying questions even at a press conference, let alone a TV show. This also came at a time when Mr. Cameron couldn’t be busier: he will be meeting the Russian president, Vladmir Putin on Sunday, and hosting the G8 summit in Ireland on Monday.

Divya Arya, from the BBC’s Hindi language service, later said that it is just impossible to get of hold political leaders here in India for such a talk. (India’s PM rarely addresses the media and the much touted future PM Rahul Gandhi is infamous for not speaking out even in the parliament).

Lesson for other leaders?

In the era of social media, it is important for nations and its leaders to assert their views and personality by adopting smart public relation strategies. Mr. Cameron’s willingness to interact with the world through BBC shows that Downing Street clearly understands how to use modern communication tools to further Britain’s international image.

It was evident that the BBC used the full force of social media tools to get questions across to Mr. Cameron.  BBC’s audience from all over the world were encouraged to ask questions via Twitter, Facebook, Skype, e-mails and even phone calls.

Modern day communication is all about speaking directly to your core audience.  People, on the other hand, are more interested in listening to what the top leader has to say.  It is a strategy that is widely used by businesses: the reasons CEOs blog or the Fortune companies tweet on an average 25 times a week.

Mr. Cameron’s questions came from all over the world, which shows that people are curious about Britain’s voice in international affairs. The power of that voice rests greatly on the ability to do some smart pubic diplomacy aimed at winning peoples’ trust and hearts.

Mr. Cameron has impressed the world with his frankness. To a question about how it feels working from office which is also his home, he said in the mornings he works in pyjamas! 

It is about time that leaders from other nations take a cue from Mr. Cameron’s dynamism. Obviously, an Indian, for example, would want to know from its leaders directly what it is doing about poverty and climate change than from Mr. Cameron. Also, the world at large would want to know from the leaders of emerging economies about their views about pressing issues for the world.

    

Cameron's apology could have made sense

It would have been commendable had the British prime minister David Cameron directly apologised for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.  On his visit to Amritsar on his recent state visit to India, Mr Cameron termed the massacre as 'a deeply shameful event in British history'.

His gestures of bending on his knees and maintaining a minute silence were good- many see it as indirect apology, but such actions, however great they may be, can never be a replacement for ‘sorry’.

Cameron invoked then secretary of state for war Winston Churchill when he quoted his 1920 remark where Churchill had termed the event as "monstrous”. However, history will  indicate that General Dyer was never really punished for the gruesome killing. He had a premature retirement, which earned him sympathy from then British gentry in India. Dominique Lapierre’s Freedom at Midnight illustrates that funds were raised by the British elite in private parties to compensate for Mr Dyer’s premature retirement.

As a nation, India has been simply great in coming to terms with history. Indians have never really hated Britain or demonized the country in its history books. There has never been anti- Britain sentiments on events like Indian Independence Day. Indians by and large admire Britain; millions look at it as its natural partner in the West. Thousands of students flock to the UK for studies, businesses love to invest there. Britain too in return welcomed millions of Indians, and has around 1.5 million subjects of Indian origin.

An apology at the holiest city for Sikhs, where Brigadier- General Dyer mercilessly killed thousands of peaceful protestors could have been purely a non political, yet Britain would be forgiven for its 200 years of subjugation of India.

Britain would have won the hearts of Indians; David Cameron a hero! It would have greatly strengthened the ‘special relationship’ between the two great nations.

Students and immigration: where is Britain going wrong?

I strongly agree with David Cameron’s view that immigrants that wish to live in the UK should at least be able to speak English.  I feel that unless a person speaks the language of the adopted country, his prospects of making economic contribution are very limited.  What I also find annoying is that while there is hue and cry over net immigration (which I think is a legitimate concern,), why doesn't Britain tap the best talents from its large pool of international graduates to fill the high skilled jobs?

 

I came to the UK to do my post graduate studies in Scotland. I am now working as a reputation executive in a public relations agency.  Throughout my stay in the UK, immigration has been a heated political topic. When I was in the university, I was often asked by many outside the university if I ever wanted to go back to my country. I was disappointed and felt I wasn’t welcome here. I had come to the UK in the pursuit of a successful global career. I was paying an astronomical fee for my university degree. I also had to meet number of educational and financial criteria to be able to qualify for my chosen programme and to get a student visa. 

Most people in the UK are not aware that the British universities themselves abuse the admission process.  They aggressively market themselves  hand in glove with greedy overseas agents and admit students to some courses on their ability to pay the tuition fees. In my university, majority of the foreign students were Chinese, and their standard of English was exceptionally low. It amused me to see that they still managed to pass the exams. I quickly realised that British universities had two groups of foreign students: one, who are really serious about their career and second, wealthy students who made it to the university because they were paying a lot of money, and in some instances, couldn’t make it to a good university in their own country.

When I got into the job market in the UK, I not only had to compete with the best students but had to demonstrate strong skills and knowledge across a wide range of areas. Obviously my past experiences and the UK degree allowed me to have a strong understanding of the British culture and the media environment. The point that I want to make is that international graduates who manage to get good jobs in the UK are already integrated with the mainstream society. The competitive job market naturally puts in place a system that only allows the best candidates to get through. Most of them have a cosmopolitan outlook and look for a career in major global cities because they want to plug into the global network in whatever profession they are in. International students are an asset to Britain, and are least of concerns on the issues raised by David Cameron in his first major speech on immigration last week.

If there is an abuse of students’ visas, it is the universities, overseas visa offices and the lack of laws to monitor the system that are to be blamed. Britain should allow foreign students in the country not on their ability to pay fees alone, but it should put in place a mechanism that allows genuine and serious students to get in. For this to happen, the universities have to tighten the admission process and the government needs to give bright graduates a scope to grow and work by putting in a place  a rational income and other eligibility criteria.