Lights up and trumpets sound! Here’s our annual silly-season Madeleine awards, for the use of symbol, stunt, prop, gesture or jest in international affairs.

The prize is named after the former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, honouring her penchant for sending diplomatic messages via her lapel brooches.

The Madeleine last year went to the Pope for the sublime symbolism of using a small black Fiat 500L as official vehicle for his Washington visit—the smallest car in the motorcade to the White House. Take that, gas guzzling Secret Service SUVs!

Before the main Madeleine, here are the minor awards.

First, the George Orwell prize for double think and euphemism. Last year’s Orwell went to the Thai junta for the term ‘attitude adjustment’—throwing critics in jail with a bag over their head. This year, the Orwell goes to China for that wonderful phrase, ‘hurting the feelings of the Chinese people’. Hong Kong University counted 143 instances of the phrase in the People’s Daily since 1959.

As The Economist commented, the public’s supposed outrage allows China to put aside its principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Strangely, though, the Communist Party rarely lets the people express feelings for themselves: spontaneous public outbursts threaten ‘the party’s control, loss of which would truly hurt.’

Next, celebration of an ‘OOPS!—I-wish-I-hadn’t-said-that’ blunder. The OOPS! essence is encapsulated by Tony Abbott’s confession he wasn’t ‘the suppository of all wisdom.’ Tony nearly won a second OOPS! for promising an Oz-footy-style shirtfront of Vladimir Putin.

An amazing presidential candidate won last year’s OOPS! by broadening our understanding of the prize. Rather than blundering gaffes, Donald Trump perfected the Reverse OOPS! The more outrageous Trump was, the stronger he became. The OOPS! concept is challenged by ‘post-truth politics’, but a new winner is clear.

Hillary Clinton, this OOPS! is for you. Along with better email protocols, Hillary wishes she’d never dumped voters into her basket of deplorables: ‘You can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.’

And now, the final contestants for this year’s Madeleine…

Beijing put in a good effort with its G20 summit, which’ll be remembered for lack of action and lack of a stairs. When President Obama landed in China there were no stairs waiting for him to emerge from the door at the front of Air Force One. ‘Very rude’ of the Chinese, as Queen Elizabeth II might mutter. Much more fun was the moment at the Rio Olympics closing ceremony when Shinzo Abe popped up as Super Mario.

The Madeleine runner-up last year was Australia’s Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, for answering questions using only emoji characters: the world’s first political emoji interview.

Bishop again ran strongly, especially her diplomatic words when the world reeled at hostilities erupting between Angelina and Brad. As the Brangelina break-up brouhaha blazed, the Foreign Minister was well-placed at the UN in New York, observing to Strewth: ‘This is one of the worst celebrity crises in recent memory. We call for calm and for both sides to exercise restraint, de-escalate tensions and avoid any unilateral action that could put at risk the stability of the global celebrity order.’

Kevin Rudd’s campaign to become UN Secretary-General had strong Madeleine potential, especially thanks to the high-quality insults thrown at The Kevin. Tony Abbott set the tone: ‘Not even I hate the UN that much.’

The purest venom came from Kevin’s ex-colleagues in the Labor Party. Pamela Williams noted that the UN was seeking a woman from Eastern Europe to be the next Sec-Gen, drawing this quote from a Rudd arch enemy: ‘Kevin Rudd could become a woman—but not an East European woman.’

Another great spray was by former NSW Labor Premier, Kristina Keneally: ‘The man is a psychopathic narcissist and that’s not just my opinion, that’s the opinion of a whole range of people who are currently sitting in the parliament. I can think of 12 Australians off the top of my head who would be a better secretary-general and one of them is my labrador so let’s be blunt here, she has a lot more empathy than Kevin Rudd.’

Want a friend in politics? Get a dog. Although there’s no bar on psychopathic narcissists winning high office; it’s often a standard trait. Which brings us back to The Donald.

The judges recalled Tom Lehrer’s lament: ‘Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.’ How do you do political humour when Trump is President and Boris Johnson is Foreign Secretary? These men are living punch lines. The hair, alone, does half the job.

Heterodox hairdos define many pollies on the popular right, from Boris to Berlusconi. The manic manes and tormented tresses signal a leader not beholden to the smooth styles of despised elites. Musing on hairstyles and populist politics, Ian Buruma remarked that hair branding is also a mark of dictators, from Hitler to Kim Jong-un: ‘Standing out is of course the point. The strange hair, or shaven head, makes the popular leader instantly recognizable.’

The Donald has the hair. And then there’s Trump on Twitter—the man who, it seems, could start a nuclear arms race with a tweet. The funniest response tweet to Trump on nukes was this: ‘Good news is Obama changed the nuclear codes to 145 characters. Trump can never use them.’

From the inauguration on 20 January, we’ll discover the Trump presidency, 140 characters at a time.

So the 8th annual Madeleine Award goes to the hairdo that twittered into the White House.

Let us pray.

US Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, treated CNN as the Security Council’s 16th member.

It was a tactic of a natural communicator: not much use being ‘on message’ if the message isn’t loud.

Albright inspired our annual Madeleine award for the use of symbol, stunt, prop, gesture or jest in international affairs.

As UN Ambassador and then as Secretary of State, Albright took diplomatic signalling to a new place by sending messages via lapel brooches.

In read-my-brooch mode, she wore a golden coiled snake to talk to the Iraqis, crabs and turtle brooches for the slow pace of Middle East talks, a huge wasp to needle Yasser Arafat, and a sun pin to support South Korea’s sunshine policy. Her favourite mistake was wearing a monkey brooch to meet Vladimir Putin, causing the Russian to go ape.

The previous column announced the minor awards. Now for the Madeleine contestants.

The singer Taylor Swift is honoured for giving China’s censors conniptions. The Swift China tour merchandise carried her initials ‘TS’ and pushed her album entitled ‘1989’. What could be wrong using Ms. Swift’s birth year or initials?

Well, TS could also stand for Tiananmen Square and 1989 was the year of the massacre. By comparison, Katy Perry gave the censors a simple thumbs-down choice when she draped herself in a Taiwanese flag during a Taipei concert.

Worthy of a Madeleine mention was China’s ‘top global honour’, the Confucius Peace Prize, awarded to Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe’s great burden joins nobles such as Castro and Putin.

The ancient dictator’s Confucius underlines the truthiness of a long ago Tom Lehrer thought: it’s hard to do satire when Kissinger gets the Nobel.

To be fair (seldom a Madeleine aim) the Confucius isn’t awarded by China, having no link to the Confucius Institutes that China is founding around the world. A bunch of Chinese citizens in Hong Kong created the Confucius in 2010 as a response to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Chinse dissident, Liu Xiaobo. Beijing might reflect that in the soft power stakes, friends can be as dangerous as opponents.

North Korea always helps set the Madeleine field. The regime that uses nuclear blasts to yell ‘Look at me’ can’t help altering images of its hereditary dictator. In August, Pyongyang stepped into the future by putting its clocks back half an hour, creating North Korea’s own time zone. The wicked imperialist time zone imposed by Japan in 1912 was gone. The deadly leader does more than sport strange haircuts. He controls time.

This award concerned with international symbols has due regard for flags. A point to flag for Australia in 2016 is the way the Union Jack is disappearing from neighbourhood flags. Soon only Australia and Tuvalu could have the Union Jack on their national flag. Two other seeds of Pacific empire—New Zealand and Fiji—could fly a new flag. The Kiwis will vote on the change while Fiji will follow recent habit and salute the thoughts of Supremo Bainimarama. ‘Make mine a Scotch!’ has become a dangerous order for the Union Jack.

The Brits aren’t flagging in doing pageantry with aplomb. The state visits London turned on, almost back-to-back, for China’s President and India’s Prime Minister demonstrated ceremonial glad-handling of the highest order.

A grand Buckingham Palace dinner scores. And a carriage ride with the Her Maj through the capital. Enchanting. PM Cameron taking his mate President Xi for a pint in a Pommy pub was merely minor key duchessing.

Acknowledge the London arrival of an excellent new euphemism for a lie. The co-chairman of the British Tory Party, Grant Schapps didn’t fib. When caught out, he admitted only to an ‘overly firm’ denial. The overly firm denial ranks with classics such as ‘economical with the truth’, ‘terminological inexactitude’ and that great Private Eye-ism for being drunk, ‘tired and emotional’.

The final choice for the award is between two fine performances—one using symbols, the other a simple gesture amid pomp—exemplifying the Madeleine spirit.

The runner-up prize goes to Australia’s Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, for doing an interview using only emoji characters for answers. Buzzfeed called its exclusive the world’s first political emoji interview.

The controversial response was replying to a question about Vladimir Putin with a symbol of a red-faced angry man.

The diplomatic relationship with the US got a thumbs up, a tick and a smiley face. China also got the thumbs up and the tick but, in contrast to the US, China’s happy face wore sun glasses and the smile was more of a grin than America’s toothy beam. Try and write a cable or an analysis discussing the significance of that difference.

The world operates on hard and soft power, bribes and bluster, argument and alliance—and emojis. When examined by the Foreign Affairs Committee in Senate Estimates, the focus was on Russia’s red emoji.

‘I’d like to understand what the diplomatic message is of the red face?’ Labor’s Penny Wong asked Foreign Affairs’ worthies. ‘Is it intended to suggest the Foreign Minister is angry at President Putin? Or does it express something else? What is the statement or public message of the red face? We don’t like him? We’re angry at him?’

Foreign took the question on notice. Senators riffed extempore on Buzzfeed Bishop. Attorney-General George Brandis objected that the emoji was more red than angry—perhaps an ideological colour. Emoji diplomacy is born.

For the winner of the 7th Madeleine award, head to Washington as a VIP flies in. The New York Daily News gives the flavour:

‘This frugal pontiff steers clear of Mercedes-Benz. Pope Francis, after touching down Tuesday afternoon at Andrews Air Force Bases, climbed into a modest Fiat 500L for his ride into Washington. The Italian-made four-door hatchback was the smallest vehicle in the motorcade transporting the Holy Father.’

The black Fiat’s license plate: SCV-1, ‘status civitatis Vaticanae’—Latin for ‘state of Vatican City.’

The New Yorker’s John Francis takes us to the White House portico. The Obamas await. Up pulls the black Secret Service SUV. Behind the gas guzzler purrs the Pope’s Fiat, the SCV-1 plate beaming like a Latin pun.

‘A Marine sentry held open the rear door on the passenger side, and the seventy-eight-year-old Pope climbed out to greet the President. He’d been in the United States, which accounts for about a fifth of the world’s total oil consumption, for only about eighteen hours, and up to that point hadn’t said a word in public. Already, however, he had delivered a message. That’s how this Pope often operates—through symbolism and gestures that convey his intentions in ways that words never could.’

Give the Pope a Madeleine.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is heading a strong Australian delegation to the 2014 NATO Summit, which opens in the Welsh city of Newport later today. It will represent the largest gathering of international leaders ever to take place in Britain. And it couldn’t be happening at a more crucial time.

The Summit marks the draw-down of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, the longest in the history of the alliance, just as it has been Australia’s longest war. We now turn our attention to how we can best support the Afghan government and its armed forces to meet future challenges.

Meanwhile, the last six months have seen Russia illegally violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of her neighbour Ukraine, and a brutal sectarian war rage across borders in the Middle East, attracting jihadist ‘foreign fighters’ from both the UK and Australia, as well as many other countries. And a commercial airliner has been shot down by what appears to be advanced military hardware in the hands of irregular rebel forces, killing hundreds of innocent civilians from countries unconnected to events on the ground. Read more

DFAT might not do strategy but its minister sure does. Julie Bishop will unveil a new international development policy next week. Although it’s tempting to dismiss claims this will mark a ‘paradigm-shift for Australia’s aid program’ as pre-launch puff, the occasion offers the government the chance to rehabilitate quietly the concept of national security, and might even represent the first glimmer of a new strategy for national security. While that project would likely be entirely different to the all-encompassing Rudd-Gillard model, a more restrained, disaggregated, and practically-focused approach to the concept isn’t without its attractions.

At first glance, it might seem a stretch to expect ministers to resurrect a mindset many of them regard as overblown. Australia’s last big push for ‘joined-up’ national security began at the start of the ‘national security decade’ following 9/11 (which saw the budget and staffing of the AFP and Australian Intelligence Community more than double) but really took-off with Kevin Rudd’s expansion of the security coordination apparatus in his department, appointment of a National Security Adviser and publication of a National Security Statement. That report and Julia Gillard’s National Security Strategy were criticised as too optimistic about our strategic outlook, over-centralised, and producing un-actionable ‘laundry lists’ of problems and goals. Read more

Richard Herr was right to say that there was ‘no massacre of hopes’ in Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s visit to Suva to meet with Fiji’s Prime Minister, Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama.

As Richard noted, it proved more of a love-in than a confrontation. But there’s no doubt that Minister Bishop took on a political risk with her Fiji policy shift. It’s now clear, however, that the risk was worth taking: she was praised in Suva, in the Australian media and the think tank world after the visit.

Ever since Julie Bishop announced some time back that there would be change in our Fiji policy, there were plenty of nay-sayers on the merits of shifting from our hard line position of trying to isolate Fiji. During the Rudd years in particular, such views had over-weening influence on the Australia-Fiji relationship, to our disadvantage in the region. Read more