"As goes the G8, so goes the world."

Simon Jenkins: Once, 'international' sounded saintly. Now it means bureaucracy and waste

Gazing briefly at the Eurovision song contest this week I could not rid my mind of a quite different image, that of Nato's multilateral force headquarters in Kabul. There was the same flag-waving and confusion of purpose, the same small-state rivalry and cynical balancing of interests. There was the same belief that, simply by being international, a so-called community of nations was forged. For Eurovision and Nato, read the Olympics and Burma, read the Moscow cup final and Darfur. Read the European parliament, Fifa, the World Bank, the Organisation of African Unity, the European parliament. I was brought up to regard "international" as synonymous with saintly. It was a concept to supplant the rude nationalism of the 20th century in a worldwide concord of peace, ruled by a clerisy of selfless bureaucrats; Dag Hammersköld out of Albert Schweitzer.

Jenkins on top form.