Fox hunting may have been curbed, but some Brits are back at another of their traditional pastimes: role hunting.
It's been nearly 50 years since U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson whipped up a storm by saying Britain had lost an empire but not yet found a role. Role hunting has been a British sport ever since. Tallyho! goes up the cry, every time they have a new government, and off they gallop, led by the prime minister and the foreign secretary. The fox usually gets away in the end – and Britain sinks back into doing whatever it does.
Tony Blair led the last big hunt, with his 1999 Chicago speech as its most resounding Tallyho, before losing his way in the sands of Iraq. Now it’s Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Foreign Secretary William Hague who are up for the chase. Unofficial master of the hounds is Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House (the most venerable of Britain’s foreign policy think tanks), which held a major conference on the subject this week as part of a larger project.
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