The signs are small, but cumulative. Guardian sub-editors cannot decide whether the "c" in Commonwealth should be capitalised, or not. The Times refers to a speech by Charles Clarke at an "education conference" - actually the Commonwealth meeting of education ministers in Edinburgh at the end of October 2003, by some distance the biggest international political meeting on education in Britain for years.
Give or take the coverage of the Zimbabwe issue at the Abuja summit in December, the Commonwealth has largely disappeared from the British media. A distinguished commentator refers to it as a "half-forgotten brand."
Is this really the institution which was one of Churchill's three circles of British interest or, as recently as 1997, one of the four pillars of British foreign policy which Robin Cook was promoting for a new Labour government? Is it the international body which four countries joined and one rejoined in the 1990s? Does it still exist - a question put to me half-seriously in pubs?
The question of the disappearance of the Commonwealth tells us something both about ourselves and about the Commonwealth too. The main problem in Britain is that the Commonwealth is blasted out of contention by the roar of louder, more frequent, more glamorous international activities. The main problem for the Commonwealth is that it seems unable to focus its assets, and lacks champions both inside Britain and internationally.
For most Brits under 50 the Commonwealth has little salience. There may be a vague association with the Queen and the British empire - a modest reference in the citizenship school curriculum - but little sentiment for the Commonwealth as a living association, which links countries ranging from Barbados to India, many of which British people like to visit. But the issue is more than generational.
In a scene dominated by the day to day reality of Britain in the EU, and the pervasive ethnic, cultural, ideological and political links with the US, the Commonwealth just seems too different. Can a group of nation states, all swimming in the turbulent tides of globalisation, but coming from varied corners of the world with their own priorities, ever agree on anything? Can they manage to do anything together? Are the British, or anyone else, prepared to set their other loyalties aside to give preference to a Commonwealth position? At Abuja it was obvious that several southern African states preferred to prioritise a misplaced black African sympathy for Robert Mugabe over what the majority understood to be the club's common principles. (It was payback time for Margaret Thatcher's reluctance to take on South Africa in the 1980s.)
The Commonwealth isn't rich, though more countries have made progress with their development than is often realised. With members like Canada, New Zealand, Brunei and Singapore it is not a surrogate for the third world either. It is not just about Africa, though African members amount to a third of the total.
It is not a military association, though its countries do more than their share of UN peacekeeping. It works by precedent, negotiation and consensus, not treaty obligation. Tony Blair, who finds it hard to hide his boredom at its summits, was never likely to invite fellow leaders for consultations before the Anglo-American adventure in Iraq last year. (In fact, apart from Australia, of a total membership of 53 only Uganda, Singapore, Tonga and the Solomon Islands supported the US-British stance before the 2003 invasion.)
Labour no longer has the instinctive, postcolonial concern for the Commonwealth that marked Jim Callaghan's government. Robin Cook, as foreign secretary, stubbed his toe on the Kashmir question. Jack Straw, who had shown commendable regularity in attending the Commonwealth ministerial action group of eight foreign ministers, when Britain was a member up to early 2002, had his interest diverted by the diplomatic avalanches of Iraq and Europe.
The most prominent Labour supporter now is perhaps Gordon Brown, who also knows most about it because he always attends the annual meetings of Commonwealth finance ministers, ahead of the IMF/World Bank gatherings. Brown has actively pursued the campaign for debt write-off and a WTO development round.
It is rather curious that the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol has opened, to some applause, at exactly the time that the Commonwealth Institute in Kensington - committed to the contemporary Commonwealth since its striking modernist building opened in 1962 - has shut, at least in the form it was known to millions of schoolchildren and adults. It is now effectively a commercial conference centre only. The institute will finally close this year, with its funds transferred to a new education centre in Cambridge
The era of the British empire, superseded in south Asia in the 1940s and in most of the rest of the world in the 1960s, now seems a long time ago. Yet British broadsheets still refer to some countries as "former British colonies." In some places wounds are still being healed. But a better understanding of the complexity of that empire should not stand in the way of an engagement with the Commonwealth. Who would ever associate ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries ) with the British empire, or Imperial College, London? The Commonwealth has been around long enough to be judged on its merits, just like those institutions.
But are its merits good enough? In Britain there has been a shyness about speaking up for it, and a kind of ebbtide in publicity. The Commonwealth secretariat, the intergovernmental nerve centre, saw its staffing drop from around 420 in 1990 to around 270 in mid-2003. The Commonwealth fund for technical co-operation has under ?25m a year to spend, and is half the size in real terms compared to the 1980s. The key paymasters, Australia, Britain and Canada, are not backing the multilateral Commonwealth with any enthusiasm. Nor is any other country.
Yet a case can be made for this overlooked body. In the last 12 years it has been a major force for democratisation and human rights, and it now has a rulebook. It has helped turn round serious problems in South Africa and Nigeria, and may well help rescue Zimbabwe. It adds to the gaiety and friendship of nations through the Commonwealth Games, and multifarious civil society links. Though sometimes ponderous, it is not feeble, as the long two-year debate which led to Mugabe's walkout in December 2003 demonstrated again.
Since Don McKinnon, a New Zealander, became secretary general in 2000, four new ministerial meetings have started - of foreign ministers, sports ministers, trade ministers and tourism ministers. Civil society and youth summits have become regular features. It is likely that President Obasanjo of Nigeria, after two earlier stabs by Thabo Mbeki and John Howard, will make active use of his two-year term as "chair-in-office," the post invented in 1999.
The Commonwealth is not sexy. It is hard for the average citizen to get involved with. It does not command more than periodic interest among presidents and prime ministers, who only meet once every two years. But it is foolish to let this non-US, English-speaking club fade away from mere inattention, at a time when its diversity, its potential for linkages and its consensus-building, are becoming more valuable. Who will make the Commonwealth matter, and say so?
