All about finding Right balance for Patten and Powell

Date: 15/03/01

Entre Nous may have found another explanation, beyond their agreement on the Balkans and the Middle East, for the instant rapport between US Secretary of State Colin Powell and External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten when they met in Brussels recently.

Despite serving in a Republican administration and a Tory government, neither is a true right-wing conservative.

Hard-liners in George W. Bush's administration like Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are thought to have had reservations about Powell's political instincts but were overruled because of the obvious appeal of the first black US foreign minister in a party with little support from African-American voters.

Similarly, an internationalist like Patten seems to have less and less in common with the increasingly eurosceptic Conservative party of which he was once chairman. In an attempt to explain the difference between his views and those of the mainstream Tories, he once said: “I am a Christian and a democrat and I'm proud to be both.”