An entry in an occasional series about what Brussels and European parliament alumni are up to. Geoff Hoon had a bit of a reputation as an amiable petrol-head – someone who likes cars – when based in Brussels as MEP. (Labour, 84-94) Later, as British defence secretary during the latest Iraq war, he obviously got a bit carried away with boys’ toys, according to his former colleague, Home Secretary David Blunkett, whose diaries were serialised in the British press last week:
“March 24, 2003. We did warn Geoff Hoon in the cabinet when Geoff was going all gung-ho about smart bombs and the rest of it. Minister John Reid warned caution but someone else said ‘Hear, hear,’ and Tony Blair turned to him and said: ‘No, no, that's not the way. We need great caution and we don't hype anything.’ But I'm afraid Geoff just gets carried away. It just seems to happen to people in the Ministry of Defence - all this Boy's Own stuff again.’
What Blunkett fails to understand is this was all done in a greater cause: to impress Hoon’s Washington counterpart – one Donald Rumsfeld. According to another recent memoir, by the British ambassador in Washington, many of Britain’s politicians failed to gain the respect of their US counterparts when they visited the US capital in the run-up to the war. Hoon and the “intimidating” Rumsfeld found it hard to get on to the same wavelength, according to ambassador Christopher Meyer.
“It was like getting pandas to mate. Hoon got nervous in Rumsfeld's presence.”
Only the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, and [now Home Secretary], John Reid, stood out, "like Masai warriors in a crowd of pygmies,” Meyer writes.
