30 April 2005 Blog Home : April 2005 : Permalink
It gave me a certain malicious pleasure to see Blairite techniques of spin used against their inventor, but the "revelation" revealed almost exactly what you would have expected. Lord Goldsmith pointed out, which everyone knew, that the legal basis for war would be stronger if there were a second UN Resolution, and he weighed carefully and inconclusively the arguments for attacking Iraq without a second resolution.
Even Jon Snow was not quite equal to the struggle of making phrases like "on the one hand" sound explosive. World exclusive: the Government's legal adviser gave legal advice.
The after talking about the famous Cretan paradox (Epimenides, a Cretan, stated "all Cretans are liars") and statign that these days politicians are "Cretan"The consequence is that people tell opinion polls both that they think Mr Blair is a liar and that he would make the best Prime Minister. It is not as illogical as it sounds: if you believe that all politicians are liars, you might as well vote for the one who lies the best. [...] That's what the voters said to the seductive Tony in 2001, and I suspect, though by a lesser margin, that they will say it again next week. (By the way, the biggest lie that they currently want to hear is that the economy will be just fine: Mr Blair and Gordon Brown are obliging.)
The problem with ZaNU Labout is not that they sided with Bush in Iraq it is everything elseAnglo-Saxon political culture still has enough self-confidence not to fear leadership in war, but to see it as a necessary attribute of a robust democracy. Which is a good thing.
It just happens to be unfortunate that, in this case, almost every other reason points to getting rid of Mr Blair and the Government he leads.
Why did the brave war leader not have the courage of his (mistaken) convictions about the euro, and put it to the test? Why does he remorselessly extend the scope and size and spend of the state, infantilising our politics in the process?
Why does he freeze our blood with talk of terrorists, yet move hell and earth to get them into government in Northern Ireland? Why does he not control immigration? Why does he disrespect our history and culture? Why does he fear freedom so much?
This is why I hope Blair goes, even though Michael Howard is not notably better he seems likely to at least be better on some of these issues. Such as Europe and the UK economy. The problem here is that we/you have a choice, and no option is good. The Lib dems are a complete disaster - if they get in we can assume the future of Britain lies in revolution because their "wooly head brigade" notions will cock up everything so badly that revolution will happen. ZaNU Labour are fiscally reckless and seem determined to bend us over to our masters in Brussels/Paris. The conservatives are apparently as amoral as their Gaullist counterparts south of the English Channel.