How To Be A True Statesman

As Dubya rattles his sabre and bangs on the war drum, Gordon Brown - currently number two in the UK's government and likely to be the next Prime Minister - today gave a rather different insight into what it is to be a true international statesman via a column he wrote for the Independent newspaper. Because the Indie hides its articles behind a pay-to-read wall after a week, I'm going to quote a big chunk for you.

Today, in Mozambique, led by Nelson Mandela, a message is being sent to every parent in the world: by 2015 every child must have the right to schooling and a school to go to.

Today, Britain is promising more money than ever before for global education and entering 10-year commitments with poor countries to make education for all a reality. We are promising to spend at least $15bn over the next 10 years on global education - four times larger than our commitment over the past decade. By this act 15 million children who do not go to school today will have the chance in the future.

We are also making an appeal to other rich countries: let us make the coming decade an education decade - ensuring that every child in the world has education.

For $10bn a year, the world could provide education for every child in every continent. It seems like a huge sum but works out at just £7.50 a year or 2p a day for each of us in the richest countries. [That's $12.75 a year or 3.5 cents a day - C]

For 2p a day, we could provide schooling for every girl and boy now denied education. That means new teachers, classrooms and books. And that 2p would not just provide the teachers needed now but ensure we could train teachers for the future. It is a scandal that, every day, 100 million children are denied the most basic education, while those lucky enough to attend a school can be taught in huge classes with not enough teachers and hardly a book between them.

This lack of education has a disastrous impact on individuals, countries and continents. The statistics on personal prosperity and health are stark. For every additional year of a child's education in the poorest countries, average earnings rise by 11 per cent. For each additional year of a mother's education, childhood mortality is reduced by 8 per cent.

...Primary education for every child, putting opportunity into the hands of all, is not just the most effective anti-poverty strategy but the most effective economic development programme. This prize is within our grasp and within our budgets.

You may recall it was Brown who was the leading British government light behind the move to forgive poor nation's debt at the Gleneagles G8 summit. The sceptics, mainly from the right because they hate helping people instead of buying guns, said the money would simply disappear into corrupt pockets (you see, they think everyone is like their own). However, as I posted recently, Zambia used its debt cancellation money to provide free healthcare for its people, and other nations have made smaller but no less valuable uses of the money. The moneyhoarding sceptics were wrong.

Brown and Mandela are true statesmen on the world's stage - helping nations to develop rather than insisting they always stay in a far poorer second place to one's own superpowered nation. I cannot think of a single prominent American politician, of either party, who can be recognised as having this greatness of spirit. They would do well to take lessons from Big Chief Gordon.