The £19 million cost of the G20 summit in London — largely to cover a massive security operation to protect the high-profile leaders of member nations — represents money well spent, according to British government hosts.

But to thousands of protesters massing in the capital to demand action on the global recession and propose alternative solutions to tackle poverty and climate change, the summit is an opportunity for finance ministers and bank chiefs to enjoy a lavish junket.

Mark Malloch-Brown, who is Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Special Envoy for G20 and Minister for Africa, Asia and the UN, told a live web chat earlier today (March 27) that the cost represented value for money.

Responding to public questions from the PM’s offices at 10 Downing Street, he said, “We have been at pains to design a summit where people will be treated with proper hospitality but where entertainment is kept simple and straightforward.”

And referring to Britain’s TV celebrity cook, Malloch-Brown added, “You’ll see some budget British cooking if Jamie Oliver will accept that description!”

He continued, “This cost compares favourably to other international summits, a number of which have cost many times more than this in recent years. And if it is the signal of restored confidence in the world economy it’ll be worth every penny of it. Remember, as a national community, we’ve already spent more than $2 trillion on fiscal stimulus measures.”

The summit will be the target of widespread protests, many of which are being organised online. City workers have been warned that they might be targeted and police are stepping up security with searches carried out in the streets ahead of the summit.

The G10 Meltdown group’s Facebook page has details of marches from four London Underground stations. There are also bulletins for protesters on YouTube and Twitter. Environmentalists are also planning demonstrations and the Stop The War Coalition will use Barack Obama’s first presidential visit to Britain to stage a call for US and UK troops to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Malloch-Brown was asked by participant “Prashant” during the web chat if Britain should be providing overseas aid to countries like India and China when they are investing in space programmes.

He replied, “Our aid programmes for both India and China have both long since been cut back to focus on remaining poverty issues, particularly in India where there remain more poor people than in the whole of Africa. While we are still doing quite a lot by volume in India, we are now doing very little in China.

“Because both countries have growing economic means, we focus on social investments which they can then pick up and copy and multiply through their own resources.

“Both countries have a very good track record (arguably the best in the world), of poverty reduction, so I think our money is well spent, but of course we hope they will continue to prioritise social spending in their own budgets. That said, I don’t think it’s our business to tell others what they should or shouldn’t do in the field of science or space exploration, after all, we all have to balance domestic spending against these other priorities.”

You can follow the Prime Minister’s Office web chats at Number10.gov.uk

Tags: climate change, G20, global warming, hospitality, London, security
Categories: analysis

This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 3.12 pm and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.