Bernard Ingham: Adopt the stealthy approach to doing good

As for the gunboat himself, Lord Palmerston was more helpful back in 1848. “We have no eternal allies and…no perpetual enemies”, he said. “Our interests are eternal and perpetual and those interests it is our duty to follow.”

So, with British foreign policy back in the “meddle and muddle” of Lord Russell’s 1864, what are we to do? Where do our eternal and perpetual interests lie?

They are to be found in pursuing the security and safety of the British people to go about their lawful business as they wish, in the spirit of Franklin D Roosevelt’s ideal of good neighbourliness. If that were the aim of all nations, we might soon discover heaven on this Earth.

But how far does this get us when robber barons with the rapacious attitudes of the Vikings have acquired 21st-century weapons? Well, it certainly shows you what an unholy mess David Cameron has inherited abroad as well as at home.

In these circumstances, we need to face a lot of uncomfortable facts before we get sucked into something we might regret in Libya or other parts of Arabia.

First, we are to all intents and purposes, bankrupt.

Second, we are already over-committed militarily on too many fronts.

Third, because we are bankrupt, we are not going to acquire much more military might.

Fourth, we cannot count on our allies, whether they be led by President Obama or, heaven help us, Baroness Ashton in Brussels. Two paralystic bacteria called Iraq and Afghanistan have entered the Western body politic – and Gaddafi probably knows it.

Fifth, we do not have a majority government. We have a coalition that contains the seeds of its own destruction, not least over foreign policy. In any case, we no longer govern ourselves.

Ye gods, I almost died of shame last week when I learned our Chief Secretary is reduced to seeking the EU’s permission to reduce petrol duty for 62,000 Scottish and Scilly islanders.

Surely, it is the ultimate in self-deception to worry about British foreign policy when we have to go cap in hand to a foreign power we have helped to create, marginally to ease the cost of living for a handful on the Celtic fringe.

Perhaps that is why the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – not to mention Foreign Secretary William Hague – seems so ineffectual these days.

Unfortunately, the people of this nation are conditioned by centuries of history and experience – indeed, the natural order of things – to count for something in the world. Witness the hoohah over our “tardy” response to getting British nationals out of Libya.

So, with much expectation but limited resources and even fewer reliable allies, how is the British Government to pursue the health, wealth and security of the British people?

First, it has to get us back in the black as soon as possible. That means concentrating on essential expenditure, safeguarding our economic future with a sane as distinct from suicidal renewables-based energy policy, encouraging enterprise and promoting free trade.

Second, we have to recover our birthright to govern ourselves. That means renegotiating, as soon as is consistent with our financial and economic security, our relationship with Europe. Until then, we are not in command of our own destiny. Difficult though it may be with the Lib Dems round his neck, Cameron has to offer the people some hope of national salvation.

Third, we have quietly but ruthlessly to pursue the security of the British people across the world. That means we shall want to help others but, where they have to be helped, we will do it with British-based firms; there is to be no more British aid lining the pockets of filthy-rich dictators like Gaddafi or Mugabe.

Of course, we want to see subject peoples liberated into democracy. But let’s have the sense to see it cannot be settled on their feudal societies – let alone imposed on them – overnight. That requires patience – and demonstrating why they will never have a better life under Islamic extremism.

My answer is to forget war, big sticks and gunboats. From now, we are in the business of doing good by stealth. Charles Lamb, the reformist writer, found the greatest pleasure in doing good by stealth and being found out by accident. So should we.