London G20: Round-up in the papers

Friday, 3 April 2009 12:00 AM

By politics.co.uk staff

As leaders emerged from the G20 summit last night they revealed their $1trillion global rescue deal. They also suggested that the recession will 'end next year'. Leaders called the summit 'historic' and a turning point in the recovery of the global economy.

The editorials today are almost exclusively focused on the outcomes of the G20 summit and analysis of the announcements made last night regarding the stimulus plan.

Telegraph

'The fightback starts here', ran the front page of the Daily Telegraph. Inside it reported, 'Global markets pushed higher by G20 summit stimulus plan', following the stock markets surge in price last night after the deal announcement. The paper continued with the leaders' pledge for tighter financial controls: 'Crackdown is cost of solving crisis'. Gordon Brown has said that in order for the trillion dollar bail-out of the global economy to work, all countries must be tough on tax havens and bank regulation.

'No grand plan, but a good start', judged the Daily Telegraph, using twice the usual column inches to analyse the outcome of yesterday's G20 summit. 'Holding a summit in itself is a worthwhile exercise, even if the results rarely match expectations', was its assessment: 'The G20 in London produced no grand plan for recovery', decried the paper, though on a more optimistic note it concludes 'if the jamboree has a legacy, it may be that the optimistic tenor of the leaders' exchanges goes some way to restoring battered global confidence'.

Financial Times

The FT also leads with 'G20 leaders hail crisis fightback', heralding the outcome of the G20 summit as 'the first bricks in a new world order'. 'Some useful progress, but still a way to go', notes the paper on the outcomes, lamenting that 'the weakest part of the package is the financial element', and pointing out that 'given the range of countries at the G20, a one-size-fits-all bank rescue policy was never feasible'. Expanding on the last point, the article worries that 'the absence of detail about a common approach to cleansing the banks of their toxic assets is extremely disconcerting'. Concluding, the paper asserts that 'the world is better for having held this summit'.

Guardian

'Brown's new world order' is the splash on the Guardian. Its inner pages reflect the tough nature of the summit with the headlines 'Late night hotel peace talks that rescued deal' and in reference to the outcome; 'A global plan for recovery on an unprecedented scale'.

The Guardian's take on the outcome of the G20 meeting is that 'while the summit did not descend into beggar-my-neighbour economics, neither did it live up to the prime minister's claim that it was "the day the world came together"'. But it goes on to say that 'this is not to dismiss the very real achievements of this week's meetings'. 'The next summit must go further,' however.

On the G20 agreement around tax havens, the paper declared: 'the parasitical paradises in which the rich stuff their gold are at the heart of what has gone wrong'. 'Offshore life should get less comfortable thanks to the mood the G20 creates', it felt, but noted that 'as in battling vampires, in taking on tax havens, what is really needed is a great blast of daylight'.

Independent

The Independent dedicates its whole front page to an image of Obama at the G20 summit running with a similar headline: 'Obama hails the new world order'.

The paper thought that while it is 'not a grand bargain', the G20 plan is 'a step towards recovery'. 'There was no Bretton Woods-style agreement to establish a new global reserve currency to replace the dollar' pointed out the paper, but it denied the outcome of the summit 'was an abject failure': 'it was an achievement in itself to get the leaders of these nations.together around the same table at a time of such turbulence in the international economy', applauded the paper. It emphasised the G20 was part of a process: 'This meeting was a stop on a larger journey, not the final destination', and 'after yesterday's result, there are grounds for hope that we are, at least, on the right road'.

On China, the Indy noted the nation's move to the foreground, writing 'An economic giant takes the stage'. 'The London summit may well go down as the moment when China finally emerged from its shell to assert its own interests in the economic world of which it has become a central part', continues the article, outlining the announcement that the heads of the IMF and World Bank will be chosen on merit; a decision 'that China, along with India, Brazil and other emerging countries, have long pressed for'. 'In extending its reach this week, China has shown itself ready to take its place at the top table of global economic governance', concludes the paper, musing 'interesting times, indeed'.

Times

The Times features part of the group photograph taken of leaders at the summit with the headline 'The London United'. It runs with the G20 summit in its inner pages with the headline 'Markets surge with confidence after $1.1 trillion boost to the global economy'.

Welcoming the G20 measures, the paper notes that while 'structural weaknesses and policy divisions remain', the plan 'will help to repair the damage inflicted by financial crisis'. But the paper laments that they are 'restricted in scope', and looks at the possible problems in implementing the plan. The summit's achievements 'were predictably modest, but it was not in vain', it concludes.

Daily Mail

The Daily Mail runs with 'Brown's new world order', and asks of the new measures 'will they work?' Devoting its entire comment column to detailing 'an almost historic compromise', the Mail examines the agreements made at the G20 summit. 'The air was thick with razzmatazz and portentousness, but that does not deflect from the fact that this has been an impressive week for Mr Brown', applauds the paper, but laments that 'those countries with huge surpluses were not persuaded to dig deep in their pockets'.

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