What the hell is the point of the United Nations?

So the circus has come to town again. The unspeakable Gaddafi is given a reasonable 15 minutes to speak, and goes on for an hour and three quarters of clowning, tearing up the UN charter and talking complete nonsense about swine flu. Well, you might say, that’s what Gaddafi does. But why do they let him? OK, manhandling him from the room might have been a bit much to expect, but they could at least have switched his mike off. But naturally everyone simply submitted to having their schedule thrown out and their time wasted. And then, naturally, Mugabe with more of the same. Why can this organisation not impose its own agreed rules?

Because “national leaders” are just too important, like two-year-olds taken at their own self-estimation (“Look at me!”). Every meeting starts unconscionably late, because in some parts of the world one demonstrates one’s importance by keeping other people waiting. (Rather like inviting women on dates: her punctuality will be in inverse proportion to her desirability.)

On two occasions during my diplomatic career I was offered a job at the UK representation in New York. This was quite a prestigious posting, but I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole; I know what goes on there. You spend all morning and all afternoon in meetings where no-one has a sense of the value of time; and then at 5 p.m. you go back to the mission and the real working day starts. I had small children whom I wanted to see from time to time. A no-brainer.

No doubt some people will be thinking that all this sounds a bit racist, imperialist, etc. Where do I get off, despising representatives of poor Third World countries? Well, if they were real representatives I wouldn’t despise them. Of course the people of Libya have a right to be represented in the counsels of the mighty; I just don’t think their interests are served in any way by highly paid and busy people having to listen to Gaddafi. Leaders of democracies have to identify themselves to a fair extent with the needs of their peoples because they want to get re-elected; all dictators are interested in is staying in power for ever and ever, and forming alliances with other dictators to that end.

Yes, of course we have to be realistic, and there have always been countries with sub-optimal political arrangements with whom we have to deal. And there are countries which may not be tremendously significant in political or economic terms which do genuinely represent a people whose voice deserves to be heard. But there are plenty of “leaders” who should simply be told: “You’re not representative, and you don’t matter. Go away.”