You have got to hand it to the Commonwealth secretariat whose comprehensive agenda for the CHOGM leaves little scope for complaint from any special interest group. Gender, race, democracy, money laundering, poverty, climate change, education and drug trafficking, all the burning topics of the day are slated for attention. No politically and socially correct resolutions would be complete without contributions from NGOs who, for the first time, have been given a Commonwealth forum. There is nothing like trotting out activists to show prime ministers and presidents have their ears to the ground. This congeries of nations represents a quarter of the world's population and it would not be incorrect to think Edinburgh will be a mini UN summit with all the right things said and soon forgotten. The real interest lies in finding out what the CHOGM thinks the Commonwealth ought to be doing in this day and age. Many have felt for a long time that this relic from the past needs a decent burial. Unfortunately, no one has had the courage to deliver the coup de grace and so it looks as if it will go gasping into the 21st century.If the secretariat's life-sustainer does not do the trick, the CHOGM will be left to try Tony Blair's. Britain's prime minister would like Edinburgh to be a ``historic turning point'', by which he means there should be less political chatter and more trade agreements henceforth. Gleneagles (the 1977 declaration to cut sporting links with white South Africa, one of the Commonwealth's finer moments) is out of date; the hot breath of European Monetary Union is what matters now in Edinburgh. It seems entirely appropriate for New Labour to be the midwife in attendance at the birth of a Commonwealth Business Club whose essential purpose, if it sees the light of day, will be knocking down trade barriers. A nursemaid is at hand in the Commonwealth Development Corporation whose brief will be to find ways of increasing private investment.Will the developing countries buy this new avatar? Commonwealth secretary general, Emeka Anyaoku, is probably wrong to think Asian and African countries will be allowed a period of adjustment, that they will be eased gently into a new free trade environment with the willing participation of Britain, Canada and Australia. If that is what developing countries hope for they would do better to take their problems to, say, the UNCTAD where they are sure to get a sympathetic hearing, at least. The whole purpose of the Commonwealth Business Club is to do at a small, manageable forum what is difficult at the vast, rule-bound World Trade Organisation: bring down trade barriers fast. Either there are dividends for India, Uganda and the rest in membership of the Club or they are better off out of it. They should not imagine they can transform the Commonwealth into a sort of economic, NAM-style support group to fight their trade battles. If Blair's project is not worthwhile and no one can offer a better vision for the Commonwealth, let it go gently into the night.
