Obama wasn't the only President in town...

As many a hack knows TB has his eyes and ears everywhere. He sent one of his undercover moles to penetrate the most left-wing of institutions - the LSE (where the conservative society is the largest political group!) yesterday for a speech given by the president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev. For someone who declared in his 2007 accounts that he has $80,000 in savings and an $80,000 salary despite being on the board of Gazprom since 2000, he had a very nice suit and apparently an iPhone too. He referred to President Obama as his 'new friend' and 'comrade'.

Despite being late to due to "G20 issues outside of his control" the president gave a speech which was on the whole decent (translation blunders aside) and cut through a lot of the spin and blunder that characterises our own beloved prime minister's speeches. He talked about resisting protection and trading on 'equal terms'. As well as how history will make it easier for Russia to nationalise companies, although he emphasised that any state control should be temporary. He also lambasted NATO and other Cold War alliances as out of date and unnecessary, he suggested that these should be replaced by an organisation that can maintain stability through discussion of domestic and foreign issues.

On the question of reintroducing the Gold Standard, he maintains that he was 'misquoted' by the media. Instead he praised currency blocs stating that 'despite their flaws they had been useful during the current crisis'. He stated that his point was to stress the importance of a global reserve currency. He argued that this would be best achieved through the use of SDR's and not gold as he is quoted as supporting.

He took (unplanted) questions which was a nice touch and answered those questions on the whole without a lot of waffle. When asked whether Putin was still really in charge he responded that there were certain responsibilities for himself and certain responsibilities for Putin, but ultimately it was he who was the head of state. Essentially yes, Putin is still in the driver's seat. This was the only bullshit answer of the lot. The next question was by a Georgian student who when he heard the news that she was Georgian, he responded by saying 'oh, wonderful' and the proceeded to wink and tell her that he would never speak to her country's government until it changed. British politics would certainly benefit from more of this type of honesty.

A mistranslation of the IMF injection turned it from a trillion dollars into a Dr. Evil-esque "one trillion hundred billion dollars" this led to a swift change of translator mid sentence as a KGB heavy took the previous translator away for some light waterboarding for the evening.

Overall, everyone seemed to walk away from the event liking him as a person and respecting his no-nonsense approach to answering questions. It seems the Soviet propaganda machine has relocated from Moscow to London.

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