Gordon Brown has to be applauded for taking the uncharacteristically bold and principled step of meeting the Dalai Lama, who has landed in the UK this morning. But it's a shame he had to dilute the symbolic significance of the meeting by announcing that it would be held at Lambeth Palace rather than Downing Street, and declaring that the meeting would be "spiritual". Yet another example of the Labour Government fearing to cause offence to the Chinese because of business.
Perhaps it is the way of the world. Perhaps Gordon Brown and his advisers are realists and I am not. But it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth nonetheless, when a sovereign government like our own, so free to lecture the nations of the Middle East on democracy and morality, won't sneeze without asking the permission of a bunch of crooks and bullies like the people who hold power in Beijing. If our own wealth is to be bought or sustained at the cost of the lives of innocent Tibetans, I'd actually rather not have it, thank you very much.
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