The Osterley Times: Blair: firm of convictions, short of friends

The Guardian's lead column summed it up perfectly:

Like a man who sets fire to his house and then discusses the flames, Tony Blair has a habit of drawing attention to his policy failures by analysing them. He did it in Los Angeles on Tuesday night in a significant speech on the Middle East that described a region ablaze with conflict without recognising his own role as one of the arsonists.

Blair often does this. He attempts to straddle two contradictory positions simultaneously. He is both an able world leader confidently striding the political stage and, at the exact same time, a passive observer lamenting the chaos that he sees, whilst - at all times - refusing to see any connection between the two, or to acknowledge that his hand was anywhere near the wheel of the crashed car.

As the Labour Party continues to be convulsed by Blair's do-nothing stance over Israel's invasion of Lebanon, Blair has opted for a defence of "Who me, Guv?", by claiming that we have all fundamentally misunderstood his stance in this dispute.

Tony Blair will face down his critics today over his controversial handling of the Middle East crisis by insisting that he has been working throughout for a ceasefire in Lebanon and that his position has been misunderstood. He will argue at a Downing Street press conference that he wanted a ceasefire, but only if it was coupled with a clear understanding that the Hizbullah militia would be disarmed.

I hate to rain on his parade but that is exactly what I always understood his position to be, and that is exactly why we all disagree with him. We all want the ceasefire to be immediate and for negotiations to follow the ceasefire.

And it now appears that this position was widely held within the government and that Blair is something of a lone figure in holding the views that he does.

It emerged yesterday that he ignored not only the advice of the Foreign Office but foreign affairs specialists in Downing Street, who argued that the Israeli offensive was counter-productive and favoured a call for an immediate ceasefire.
Critics inside the Labour party said Labour MPs, dispersed throughout the country because of the parliamentary recess, were in despair over his handling of the crisis, and a 12-strong group of backbench MPs, including many Muslim MPs, led by Mohammed Sarwar, called for a return of parliament to discuss the crisis.
Joan Ruddock, a former minister, said there was a sense of "despair" within Labour ranks. "I have not met any member of the Labour party who actually agrees with our strategy," she told BBC Radio 4's The World At One. "I really can't envisage at the moment how the party conference will go. There is enormous anger, disappointment and the sense that there has to be a change of direction, but that the damage has been done. "
The chairman of the parliamentary Labour party, Ann Clwyd, who was an unwavering supporter of Mr Blair in the run-up to the war in Iraq, and is in regular contact with him over the Lebanon issue, also said feelings were running high. "Before the recess ... a lot of people were very angry. I think the vast majority of them felt that there should be a ceasefire and the vast majority of them are very critical of Israeli policy."

Blair's authority has been slipping from him for some time now, but when loyalists like Ann Clwyd start talking publicly about your failings then Blair is on the verge of losing, not only the usual suspects, but the Blairites as well.

The problem is not that Blair fundamentally misunderstood the values of the party that he is leading, it is that the Labour Party's values are not his values at all. Indeed, he is never happier than when he thinks he is dragging the Labour Party screaming and kicking from it's Socialist roots towards his new Labour dawn.

And that habit was fine when he was pushing the country into war with Iraq.

For no matter how loudly old Labour supporters like me screamed, he was confident that he retained the readership of the Daily Mail on his side. Because, as he memorably observed, come election day where else did old Labour voters like me have to go?

The problem with his stance towards the Israeli/Lebanon crisis is that he has also lost the support of those very same Middle England voters that he wooed in 1997.

A Guardian/ICM poll last week showed that 61% thought Israel had overreacted to the threats it faces, with only 22% of voters believing it had responded proportionately to the kidnapping of soldiers and other attacks from militant groups.
In general foreign policy terms, 63% thought Mr Blair had tied Britain too closely to the US, with only 30% arguing that he had the balance about right. Even a majority of Labour supporters felt he had misjudged the relationship; 54% said Britain was too close to the US.
Those findings were echoed in a Daily Telegraph/YouGov poll, which showed that a majority of voters - 53% - felt the government had performed poorly or very poorly during the crisis. Most echoed Kim Howell's criticism, with respondents agreeing that Israel's assault on south Lebanon was "inappropriate and disproportionate" by a margin of more than three to one.

Blair is now more isolated than at any other time during his Premiership, and claiming this is because we have all misunderstood him simply won't cut the mustard. We understand him very well. We just happen to vehemently disagree.

Blair has once again hitched his trailer to the neo-con wagon and, in doing so, he has alienated us from the EU, from United Nations - indeed - from most of the world.

Unhappiness at the UN over US and British policy on Lebanon extends to powerful security council members, including Russia and China, and most general assembly members.
Vitaly Churkin, Russia's UN ambassador, told Izvestia yesterday: "Discontent has been rising recently among security council members with the fact that the US is prepared to block any decision which would bring pressure to bear on Israel," he said. "This discontent is expressed practically every day by many delegations."
Mr Blair's approach has also dismayed pro-western Arab governments that share his hostility to Hizbullah and other militant groups. Despite his acknowledgement in Washington last Friday that they were in a dangerous "squeeze", Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others feel Mr Blair could and should have done more to help rein in Israel.
The prime minister's accusations against Iran and his warning that it would be "confronted" if it did not change its ways, repeated in Los Angeles, have provoked anger and disdain in Tehran. "British officials have asked us to help end the conflict," said Rasoul Movahedian, Iran's ambassador to London. "But since they are not trying to do so, they are not really in a position to ask others.
"British arms sales to Israel have doubled in the past year. This weaponry is being used to kill Lebanese people. It is very important for the United Kingdom government to take responsibility."

As British made weaponry joins it's American counterparts in raining down on Gaza and Lebanon, Blair is wasting his time even attempting a defence of being misunderstood.

Actions speak louder than words, and for all Tony's claims of seeking a ceasefire, our rockets continue to slam into Lebanese and Gaza targets... and we continue to refuse to demand that they stop doing so.

That is not, despite Tony's protestations, an ambivalent position.