I have been scratching my head recently (not its not lice, although I live in France I don't adopt all French habits and do bateh frequently :) ) about why exactly my dislike to A Blair Esq. and his minions seems to grow by leaps and bounds and why, despite basically agreeing with a lot of their (stolen) ideas I hate them. Fortunately for my remaining hair follicles a Samizdata post has pointed me to a Spectator editorial which helps diagnose the problem:
Since 1997 the Labour government has created no fewer than 700 new criminal offences. This is supposed to be an age of increasing peace and prosperity. Yet the Labour party has been in such a continuous panic about the behaviour and potential behaviour of the British people that it has found 700 new ways in which to proscribe courses of conduct. In case you are wondering how that compares with any previous administration, Labour is creating criminal offences at a rate ten times greater than that of any other government.
This might not in itself be a bad thing, if society were plagued by a wholly new set of evils. But far too many of these laws are either vexatious, or else they are unnecessary since the problems they are intended to address are already covered by existing statute. The Terrorism Bill is a perfect example of both vices. We have already discussed the absurdity of the clause on encouragement or glorification of terrorism, which would seem to catch Cherie Blair’s apparently sympathetic words about the predicament of Palestinian suicide bombers. Charles Clarke’s answer has been to assert — without any supporting argument — that the law would not be used in such cases.
If that is so, people are entitled to ask what Labour understands by a law. Is it there to be enforced to the letter? Or is it just a kind of cosmic yelp, a gush of parliamentary feeling, not to be taken seriously by the criminal justice system? The paragraphs on encouragement and glorification are either odious and foolish, and theoretically liable to criminalise people who express opinions about the removal of some of the vilest regimes in the world. Or else they are simply redundant, since the present law on incitement is quite powerful enough. The truth is that the government doesn’t really mind much about the detail of the law. They care far more that in the aftermath of the London bombings they should be seen to be ‘doing something’ about the ‘preachers of hate’, even if that means doing something absurd.
A light goes on. This is the French approach. Actually, to be more specific this is the enarque approach - that is to say the approach of the slimy politicians and bureaucrats that have misruled France pretty much ever since Napoleon lost in 1815. Look at the Bliar approach to the July bombings and compare it with l'Escroc's approach to the current riots and marvel at the similarities.
The French pass law after law that really are not laws but more guidelines or vague declarations of what would be a nice idea; witness French attitudes to road safetly laws or human rights for example and the French state shows the same insoucience about laws and regulations from Brussels or UN sanctions. In some ways the shock of Sarko is that he has an Anglo-Saxon viewpoint that laws should be obeyed and thus has actually indroduced speed cameras and the like (as well as deciding that the rule of law is not something that should apply only in some parts of France).
It seems to me that the problem with Blair and his New Labourites is that they admire the continental model of just about everything. As such they are unable to see the problems with it and try to apply it to a nation with very very different traditions. It would be a cheap (but accurate) shot to note that they seem keen on "café culture" and seem unaware that pubs are not in fact cafés but this is just a simple example of a worrying trend. It is in their approach to laws that the Bliarites have truly fallen in love with the continental model. The British approach to laws has evolved over most of the last millenium (and arguably for some time before that) and it has always had two fundamental underpinings
Everything not explicitly forbidden is permitted
You are innocent until proven guilty
The result is that Englishmen (and others that we have bequeathed these ideas to) did not cry out for rights to work or access to the internet or whatever, rather they assumed that no one would stop them if they went and found work the internet etc on their own. Rather than get permission for a march or gathering the assumption used to be that unless the local "community" objected you would always have that right. Now this has partly changed thanks to the ideas of Marx and his misguided pals as implemented by succesive British governments but even today the majority of us do not expect the state to look after us no matter what we do.Furthermore he & his pal Gordon seems to have a distressing French habit of retrospectively changing the rules on you after you have made a success and opportunistically helping themselves to your property or, more critically, your savings. It seems that they do believe in the continental approach to money, which is that it all belongs to the government but that if you are nice they'll let you keep it for a bit. I regret that part of the problem can probably be laid at the foot of St Margaret Thatcher since she was the Prime Minister who really got the enormous centralization of state power going but Bliar & co have done their part and managed to get the central government to poke its grubby fingers into even more bits of the nation in a way which is highly reminiscent of what we see here in France.
The problem with such centralization is that everything becomes politicised. Melanie Phillips writes eloquently about how Bliar's desperate attempts to get his 90 day rule implemented has resulted in the explicit politicisation of the police and how, as a result, Chief Constables will be perceived as the mouthpieces of government spin doctors whenever they say anything in the future. The result, of course, terribly continental: to whit an ever increasing cynicism about politicians and government and this is a disaster, as can be seen on the streets of Paris today. Once you assume that the government will just waffle and spin but not actually do anything 99% of the time your only way to change things is riot and/or corruption.
Should further evidence of Bliar's fascination with the continental model be required I point to all his barmy "grands projets" from "cool Britannia" and the Millennium Dome to the 2012 Olympics. His success in the latter is, IMO, a clear example of just how well he understands the continental model in that he managed to out politic l'Escroc himself with the IOC delegates. All in all I think that New Labour is misnamed, it should, as the title to this post suggests take its name from across the English Channel and be "Labour Nouveau"; any snobbish affiliation of that label with nouveaux riches, parvenus or Beaujolais Nouveau is purely an additional side benefit of improved labeling and spin reduction.