ABSTRACT

The ‘strongly positive feel’, that accompanied the Make Poverty History (MPH) campaign to lobby the G8, was clearly interrupted by the events of 7 July 2005. But was this interruption just an unfortunate circumstance? Or can more be read into it? In a recent article, Andrew Linklater remarks that campaigns like MPH provide a clear sign that cosmopolitanism ‘has become central to the political imagination’ in the twenty-first century (Linklater 2007: 19). On 7 July, in the wake of a series of bomb attacks in London, Tony Blair left Gleneagles to be present in London. He held a brief press conference, stating that ‘[j]ust as it is reasonably clear that this is a terrorist attack, or a series of terrorist attacks, it is also reasonably clear that it is designed and aimed to coincide with the opening of the G8’ (Blair 2005; emphasis added).