Saturday, September 02, 2006
I may have drunk a little before writing this...
Much as there are various levels to how terrified the Government would like us to be*, ranging from flacid to ejaculating with terror! should there not be some similar scale to Tony Blair's sanity, if not for us, then for the benefit of his MPs? Perhaps it could range from Clause 4 was outdated to I can tell which children are going to be troublemakers before they're born using my brane! What exactly is the Labour party up to? I've seen lemmings who've just been fired from their jobs as kamikaze pilots with better self-preservation skills than this shower of muppets. By encouraging a cult of personality Labour can confidently blame their current poor opinion poll figures on one man, Tony Blair. But presumably it's the memory of those dismal 1980s that's stopping them from kicking him off the throne before he takes to carrying a handbag and announcing "we are a grandmother", they're worried that if Blair leaves at any time other than of his own choosing then they are dooming themselves to another generation in Opposition. However, the harsh truth of politics is that Labour are now in a position where they could announce they've discovered a cure for eternal life and everyone will just moan "great, all that money I wasted on a pension scheme" while reading a four page colour supplement on the Leader of the Opposition drowning kittens.
But I'm torn as to why exactly Tony is hanging on, and I suspect Blair is too. He's now given up on any Earthly authority agreeing with him that invading Iraq was a good idea (I've heard that when he dies he wants his ashes blown into space as, considering the universe is infinite there'll be something out there with the power to bring him back to life and say "you were right") so he's now concentrating on what's really important: Fucking up Gordon Brown. He seems to have two options for doing this which are, unfortunately, fairly exclusive. However, Tony is not one for avoiding a decision when he can just take two paths. The first plan is to find a protege who could fight Brown and win. They've come and gone (Steven Byers) but generally it's whoever is wearing the number three jersey. He'll be very happy with how John Reid saved us all from terror over the summer* and the fact that people were more interested in the idea of John Prescott in a cowboy hat and very little else in June rather than the Chancellor's second son. And someone from John Reid's team was on Newsnight on Thursday to deny her boss had any ambitions for the top chair so that's about as clear as you can get: John Reid knows how to kill a man without leaving a mark, Gordon Brown should watch which alleyways he walks down.
Tony Blair's second plan is scorched earth, when he leaves Number 10 he'll also be leaving British politics, so with the Labour party having outlived it's usefulness to his ambitions he's quite happy to have it in such a parlous state that should Gordon Brown be leader he'll be so busy fighting fires in his own backyard that it'll make the Major years look like a model in how to run a tight ship. If Blair cannot prevent Brown becoming Prime Minister he certainly doesn't want him winning elections as well.
Blair stopped (even the pretense of) running this country for the benefit of the British people some time ago, 11th of September 2001 as memory serves. But now he's not doing it for the Americans or even Newscorp any more**, now he's doing it purely out of spite*.
* And how confident do you feel that, at the time of writing, the crisis level has not changed since the 14th of August?
** Both Blair and Reid have made recent pilgrimages to kiss the ring of Rupert Murdoch. Does anyone know the last time Gordon Brown made the necessary genuflections?
But I'm torn as to why exactly Tony is hanging on, and I suspect Blair is too. He's now given up on any Earthly authority agreeing with him that invading Iraq was a good idea (I've heard that when he dies he wants his ashes blown into space as, considering the universe is infinite there'll be something out there with the power to bring him back to life and say "you were right") so he's now concentrating on what's really important: Fucking up Gordon Brown. He seems to have two options for doing this which are, unfortunately, fairly exclusive. However, Tony is not one for avoiding a decision when he can just take two paths. The first plan is to find a protege who could fight Brown and win. They've come and gone (Steven Byers) but generally it's whoever is wearing the number three jersey. He'll be very happy with how John Reid saved us all from terror over the summer* and the fact that people were more interested in the idea of John Prescott in a cowboy hat and very little else in June rather than the Chancellor's second son. And someone from John Reid's team was on Newsnight on Thursday to deny her boss had any ambitions for the top chair so that's about as clear as you can get: John Reid knows how to kill a man without leaving a mark, Gordon Brown should watch which alleyways he walks down.
Tony Blair's second plan is scorched earth, when he leaves Number 10 he'll also be leaving British politics, so with the Labour party having outlived it's usefulness to his ambitions he's quite happy to have it in such a parlous state that should Gordon Brown be leader he'll be so busy fighting fires in his own backyard that it'll make the Major years look like a model in how to run a tight ship. If Blair cannot prevent Brown becoming Prime Minister he certainly doesn't want him winning elections as well.
Blair stopped (even the pretense of) running this country for the benefit of the British people some time ago, 11th of September 2001 as memory serves. But now he's not doing it for the Americans or even Newscorp any more**, now he's doing it purely out of spite*.
* And how confident do you feel that, at the time of writing, the crisis level has not changed since the 14th of August?
** Both Blair and Reid have made recent pilgrimages to kiss the ring of Rupert Murdoch. Does anyone know the last time Gordon Brown made the necessary genuflections?
Labels: 11/09/01, Gordon Brown, Labour, The War Against Terror, Tony Blair
