Blair's Mindset
It's being reported that Tony Blair intends to stay in office for a further three years, proof of this being that he has decided to rent out his "retirement home" in Connaught Square for a further year and that it will require eighteen months of renovation work to bring it up to the required security level needed for a former Prime Minister.
It now appears that Blair does intend to stick to his election promise and see out a full term.
Of course all of this could be wishful thinking should Blair decide to back any plans that Bush may have for a military strike against Iran. He could be looking for a retirement home quicker than he intends if he goes along with that madness.
There's also been an interesting exchange of emails between Blair and journalist Harry Porter, published in today's Guardian that are rather revealing about Blair's mindset. You can read the emails here.
What's interesting is how, in his first email, Blair attempts to address the journalist's points, but by the second he's simply given up any attempt to address the charges that Porter raises. Even in the first email he parries criticism by choosing to accuse Porter and others who disagree with Blair, as being: "out of touch... with the reality of people's lives".
This a charge that is almost meaningless. It's classic Blair-speak. It's such a subjective term, "who really understands where the people are coming from?", that it renders any further rational debate as an act of futility. Yet, this is how Blair chooses to frame the argument.
Likewise, when confronted with what is percieved as Blair's attack on civil liberties, Blair responds, "Ultimately, for me this whole issue is not about whether we care about civil liberties, but how we care for them in the modern world."
Again he draws a distinction that means nothing to anybody. How can we care about civil liberties in any other world other than the one that we live in?
Likewise, when asked about banning people from protesting in Parliament Square, another draconian measure introduced by Blair, he responds, "You say people can only have blank placards outside Parliament and can't protest. Go and look at the placards of those camped outside Parliament - they are most certainly not blank and usually contain words not entirely favourable to your correspondent."
When it is pointed out to him that the only person protesting outside Parliament Square is the anti-war protester Brian Haw who's demonstration preceded the introduction of the act, which is not retrospective; Blair has no response to this and simply ignores it in subsequent emails.
The most jaw-dropping indication of the mindset of this right wing man leading a left-wing party comes when he states, "I would widen the police powers to seize the cash of suspected drug dealers, the cars they drive round in, and require them to prove they came by them, lawfully. I would impose restrictions on those suspected of being involved in organised crime. In fact, I would generally harry, hassle and hound them until they give up or leave the country."
Not since Thatcher was in office have I heard a British Prime Minister talk of their own citizens as people that should be driven from their own land. In Thatchers day, whenever people objected to cruise missiles being stationed at Greenham Common, the right wing would cry, "Go and live in Russia then."
The only substantive difference between Blair and the Thatcherites is that he remains ambivalent about which country you relocate to. He just wants you out, whereas, they wanted you in a Gulag. That subtle distinction is why he's Labour and they are bad, bad, Tories.
Blair really is Thatcher's bastard love child.
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