Blairite Chutzpah

In the Independent John Rentoul attacks John Major's record on social mobility in comparison to St Tony. There is much in the article that strikes me as nonsense but this is particularly disingenuous:

But what did Major do to work to change the system while he was Prime Minister? He sneered at Tony Blair as “another public school-educated Socialist” in his 1995 Tory conference speech. That would be the Tony Blair who sent all his children to state schools, the first prime minister to do so. The Tony Blair who raised standards in state schools especially in London, under Major an under-invested disaster area for the education of working-class children. The Tony Blair who introduced academy schools to replace schools that had failed their disadvantaged pupils.

The state schools that Blair sent his children to were hardly "bog standard comprehensives", but the what is really incredible is praising academy schools.

Academy schools are a great idea but when Labour introduced they weren't exactly an entirely new idea. They are almost identical to the Grant Maintained Schools introduced by the Conservatives which flourished under John Major and were then abolished by Tony Blair. To compare Blair to Major favourably by pointing to Academies is simply ludicrous.

Was Labour 1997-2010 The Worst Government Ever?

Over on the Telegraph blogs Sean Thomas outlines the case and it is hard to argue with.

I suppose worst ever might be pushing it- the governments that presided over the Irish potato famine or appeasement might be worse- but Blair and Brown surely led the most incompetent administrations in British post war history.

It's not that other governments didn't do worse in particular areas than Labour in this era- it's that there was full spectrum failure in pretty much every department- the economy, defence, foreign policy, education, welfare, immigration, race relations, inequality and health care were all disaster areas when Labour left office.

Can anyone think of any substantive successes associated with the last government>

Cringe Inducing Prose Of The Week

One of many excerpts from Tony Blair's book:

I heard an interesting example of this once from, of all people, Nelson Mandela. Mandela - or Madiba as he is also called (his clan name) - is a fascinating study, not because he’s a saint but because he isn’t. Or rather he is, but not in the sense that he can’t be as fly as hell when the occasion demands. I bet Gandhi was the same.

Or this one where as one of the commentators at the FT's blog points out he sounds as if "Middle East Peace Process" is a euphemism for his penis:

The biggest problem with the Middle East peace process is that no one has ever gripped it long enough or firmly enough. The gripping is intermittent, and intermittent won’t do. It doesn’t work. If it was gripped, it could be solved.

Unfortunately Shooting Tony Blair Is Wrong

Much as I dislike Tony Blair this seems unwise:

The Foreign Secretary said the public must not be forced to pay more than is "absolutely necessary" for police protection, which Mr Blair is given during private holidays and international business trips.

His comments came after it was disclosed that Mr Blair’s Metropolitan Police protection squad ran up a £5,000-a-week expenses bill over the past year.

Making political capital out of the cost of protecting political rivals is incredibly stupid. there are undoubtedly people who would like to murder Tony Blair- Islamic radicals, Serbian nationalists, me- and if politicians don't get protection from potential assailants then in future our politicians will have to think of their personal safety when making decisions then they will inevitably have to pander to violent groups in order to ensure their own safety.

Tony Blair's Botox

I can't be the only person to have noticed his wrinkle and expression free forehead on the news today.

He's Back

Tony Blair will make a dramatic return to the centre stage of British politics to boost Labour's election hopes.

By backing the Tories presumably.

With Labour so short of money I wonder if they can afford to pay Blair's fee anyway.

Preparing For The Iraq War

The latest news from the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war make depressing reading. Geoff Hoon's revelation that Gordon Brown blocked funding for helicopters and the news that Tony Blair delayed preparations for the war for months in order to pretend that the decision to invade had yet to be finalised is appalling.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of going to war, and I believe the case for removing Saddam was persuasive, there can be no justification for going to war knowingly unprepared. Blair always seemed to like being hailed as an international statesman by committing British troops to action but was unwilling to make the political sacrifice of confronting his Chancellor in order to secure the funds to pay for it.

There is no justification for going to war incompetently and this is the real reason why the war has become so unpopular not the arguments about the legality. The public were largely supportive of the war when Baghdad fell to the allies and previous wars of similar legal status have been generally supported if they are successful.

Most of the above also applies in spadesto the inept American handling of the invasion too, at least under the mismanagement of Donald Rumsfeld.

Dubious Associates Uncovered.

The intervention of the Chief Rabbi of Poland into the Michael Kaminsky on the Today programme appeared to have scuppered the Miliband/ Guardian/ New Statesman smear campaign.

However it now emerges that there is incontrovertable proof that Kaminsky has been associating with deeply unsavoury figures.

Various Stuff.

• Germany's Der Spiegel gives a round up of the reaction of German papers to the British expenses scandal! It's a bit embarrassing that they are talkng about it but they do make the point that the disillusionment with politics isn't a specifically British problem. Therefore the various suggestions for changing our constitution to a more continental style with PR and all that might be worthwhile they aren't the root cause of the dissatisfaction. (Link via Blognor Regis)
  
• I was going to comment about this article which berates Tony Blair for not treating Al Qaeada with the same respect that the crusaders showed to Salidin, but I'll just link to Mick Hartley's post instead.
• I was also going elaborate on previous comments about the BBC, but Minette Marrin's article says exactly what I was going to say.
• With all the Korean stuff, both the Nork Nuke & the suicide of the South Korean president who did so much to appease the North, this Korean focused blog is worth reading.
• Michael Burleigh's article on how the defeat of the Tamil Tigers disproves the maxim that you can't beat terrorism with force.
  

55/87

This thread is impressive even by Guardian standards, with a whopping 55 out of 87 comments deleted.

Blair- Still Got The Old Magic.

It's nice to see that Tony Blair is having as much success in his role as Middle East peace envoy as he had as Prime Minister. In fairness the Israeli Palestinian situation has always been volatile even before his Tonyness came along saying "look guys, how come you don't have the Christmas spirit over here?".

The Independent reports that:

Three Israelis killed as Hamas launches revenge attacks

Which isn't really true seeing as it was Hamas's rocket attacks that precipitated the current situation. Perhaps Hamas were taking preemptive revenge.

I'm not sure whether Israel's actions are correct or appropriate. Allowing rocket attacks to continue is clearly not an option but the Prime Minister is corrupt and demonstrably incompetent so who knows whether this is the best response or whether it is being done with one eye on the upcoming Israeli elections? It would be nice if there were a means of targeting those who fire the rockets without endangering civilians but without effective intelligence gathering that is difficult to do.

However the way the UK media have been reporting the situation is misleading in that it present every Israeli action as occurring in a vacuum with no context given for why they are doing it whereas Hamas's behaviour is presented as being a reaction to what Israel does rather than the conscious choices of sentient individuals.

As with Hezbollah's unprovoked attack on Israel two years ago, territory that Israel had completely withdrawn from is being used as a platform to attack and murder Israelis. This clearly undermines the case for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and East Jerusalem so you would have imagined that opponents of Israel's presence in the West Bank would have been the loudest in denouncing Hamas and Hezbollah but instead there is a long pause followed by a barrage of propaganda and conspiracy theories to excuse them.

"Extremely Seriously".

Tony Blair had to be rushed on to his plane at an Israeli airport after one of his British bodyguards accidentally fired his gun causing a security scare.
.....

Accidental firings are taken extremely seriously in Israel and its Airports Authority has launched an inquiry.

Is there anywhere that accidental firings aren't taken too seriously? It's not as if you let of a couple of rounds at Stanstead they let you laugh it off.

Quote Of The Day.

Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail asks a very good question:

According to parliamentary expenses smuggled out under the radar last Friday, Tony Blair remortgaged his constituency home in Geordieland for £300,000 - twice what it was worth. He then claimed back the interest payments from the British taxpayer.

Someone please explain to me which bit of this isn't stealing.

Man Of The Year.

The Sunday Telegraph is right to crown General David Petraeus as its Person of the Year. His job is far from complete but his accomplishment in turning around a conflict that looked as though it could result in a jihadist victory is immense. At the beginning of the year the vast majority of media and political commentators were dismissive of the Surge strategy but it was a rational response to the problems that had developed. Oliver Kamm recounts General Petraeus's achievements more eloquently than I could before finishing with a bizarre statement at the end:

Had Tony Blair and General Petraeus been, respectively, the leading political and military figures in the Coalition's Iraq campaign from the outset, much more might have been achieved.

Other than a vague misplaced hero worship of Tony Blair why would anyone assume that he would have enabled a better outcome to the Iraq invasion than what actually happened? Did Blair criticise the lack of manpower when he was Prime Minister? In fact the area that he was responsible for, Basra, saw a strategy of appeasing the local militias which now looks to have been seriously misjudged. Now if Robert Gates had been the leading political figure then things might really have improved.

Same As The Old Boss.

A lot of the talk in the comment sections of various political blogs about the Broon election fiasco has been that it was a blunder that Blair* would not have made. I don't agree, Blair was every bit as cynical and contemptuous of the constitutional process as Brown, however if Blair had done it then it would have been a story for around a week before being forgotten. This is because unlike Gordon Brown, Tony Blair never had an image as being anything other than a lightweight opportunist, in fact it was part of his appeal because it meant that large parts of the electorate believed that he would be pragmatic rather than dogmatic. Brown has for the last four months been portraying himself as someone who was above the stunts and the spin of the Blair years, as a serious man for serious times. Being caught out spinning shatters the Brown public persona whereas when Blair was caught out throughout his tenure in office it simply reinforced his image.


* Blair, Tony Blair come on you remember him don't you? He used to be Prime Minister back in the beforetime.

It Needed To Be Said.

The sycophantic behaviour of parliament during Tony Blair's final PMQs was shameful, rewarding 10 years of lying, bullying and incompetence with a standing ovation was contemptible. Ian Paisley was particularly vile. At least one MP seems to have been immune from the stage managed grovelling so good on John Redwood.

Finally!

So at long last Tony Blair is leaving 10 Downing Street hounded out by his own party. It isn't how anyone would have wanted him to go, but then again a sniper was never very likely so this shall have to suffice. So out with the old in with the slightly older, Gordon Brown. Not sure when Broon names his first cabinet but I've had an inside scoop that it will consist largely of former trade unionists, public sector workers, lawyers, and psuedo-charity workers.

Oh John Prescott, John Reid & Hilary Armstrong are also going, but I can't muster the will to care.

Self Pity As A Substitute For Self Reflection.

Tony Blair's whinge about the behaviour of the British press is true in parts, but demonstrates more chutzpah than Hannibal Lector complaining about the lacklustre conversation of his dinner guests:

He said fierce competition for stories meant that the modern media now hunted "in a pack".

"In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits, but no-one dares miss out," he said.

When it comes to tearing reputations to bits few people can match the sheer viciousness of Tony Blair. The most quintessentially Blairite moment of the last ten years of government was in my opinion the Rose Addis affair. To summarise a 93 year old woman was very poorly treated by the hospital that was supposed to be caring for her, and the response of Tony Blair was to leak her medical records to the press and have his lackeys spread lies about her refusing to be treated by black nurses. They also leaked the medical records of several other patients at the same time.

There are plenty of other examples of Blair using the press to wreck the reputations of those who were politically inconvenient, the smear campaign against former Tory treasurer, Michael Ashcroft, run in conjuction with the corrupt former editor of the Times, Peter Stothard who recieved a knighthood in return, in which wholly bogus allegations of impropriety were drip fed into the public conciousness over the course of a couple of years. Michael Ashcroft was of course in a better position to defend himself than Rose Addis was.

Blair is the adult equivalent of the school bully who torments the other kids until one of them hits back, then he runs to the teacher to sob and demand that action be taken.

Update: This old Alice Thompson article is worth reading, and gives more examples of Blairite reputation destroying than I do here.

International News.

Freetown - British Prime Minister Tony Blair is due on Wednesday in Sierra Leone, a west African country where he is popular for bolstering a fragile peace process to end one of the most brutal civil wars of recent history....

....In Freetown, many homes are adorned with potraits of Blair

Many homes in Britain also have portraits of Tony Blair, but seeing as darts isn't very popular in Sierra Leonne I've no idea where they put theirs.

(In fairness Sierra Leone is one of the rare examples of Tony Blair accomplishing something positive.)

BBC Mourns Blair.

The BBC's treatment of Blair's resignation has been verging on the hagiographic, except on Iraq. Their news coverage was one sided enough, unashamedly presenting New Labour's own narrative* as the gospel truth, for example asserting that Britain is more tolerant than ever before despite the fact that there seem to be an awful lot of arrests for thought crimes in the last ten years. The Newsnight special however hit a new low, it featured 6 guests, Michael Howard, Charles Kennedy and no less than four Labour supporters from the Blairite wing of the party, Alastair Campbell, Alan Milburn, Polly Toynbee and David Hare.

There was all sorts of rewriting of history to portray pre 1997 Britain as some kind of apocolyptic wasteland where public services were in meltdown and the economy in chaos. As Michael Howard pointed out according to the OECD public services were improving at a greater rate before 1997 than after, but facts matter for little when you are outnumberd 6 to 1 so this was ismissed. Polly Toynbee** made the bizarre claim that Labour's obsession with spin should be understood because the press is 75% Tory, which is bizarre when you consider that Labour have the support of the BBC, The Sun, the Mirror, The Times, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Independent wheras the Tories only really have the support of the Telegraph and The Daily Mail. That she was on a panel with 5 left wing members and one right, plus a host who was obviously sympathetic to Labour didn't seem to occur to her.

Poll Pot's claim was in response to the highlight of the programme where Michael Howard laid into a clearly rattled Alastair Campbell about his record of deceit, bullying and coarsening of the political culture. Like most bullies Campbell is pretty pathetic when confronted directly and spent the rest of the show acting like a brat trying to make cheap shots at Howard.

* The 'Narrative' is Labour's attempts to manipulate how the past is remembered by simply asserting a bogus version of history. If people are constantly told that before 1997 schools were crumbling and the economy was in chaos then eventually they will start to remember it that way regardless of what actually happened.

** Toynbee also made an absurd misuse of the British Crime Survey. again. I don't want to get started on that once more though.