Blah Blah Flowers

At the weekend the media were all telling us it was going to be a difficult week for Tony Blair. Difficult votes on unpopular subjects. Gordon Brown effectively the Prime Minister already. Tony Blair a marginalised figure. What happens? He gets the complete smoking ban and the still supine Commons votes in favour of the Bills the Lords struck down. It was the same with the Universities Bill. 'Oooh, he's dead!' they said. In the late Nineties the British press consistently underestimated the malevolence of the Republican controlled Government apparatus and didn't realise they'd censure Bill Clinton just because they could. So, as they've been predicting that Blair and Bush are fucked for the last eighteen months or so, perhaps it's time to try a new tack? 'Blair invigorated and prepared for a fourth term'? 'Bush keeps careful lookout while walking along narrow high mountain path'? And my own personal favourite: 'Margaret Thatcher in no pain at all and not kept awake at night by the screams of her many victims'?