Scary Alex - does Blair think he'll get "Salmond"ella?

"He never writes, he never phones..."



So said Alex Salmond when asked about Tony Blair.

On Friday, Gordon Brown, the soon to be and sorta kinda really already is the next PM (Prime Minister) of the UK, phoned to congratulate Alex Salmond on becoming the First Minister of Scotland. Great, but a little tardy at 16 days after Alex got the job.

Tony? He's abroad, he's too busy, he's (in my opinion) really pissed off!!

Tony is swanning around Africa indulging his massive ego with a farewell tour of places he likes to think he did real swell in - Libya, Sierra Leone... etc.
["Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
Britons never will be slaves." - yeah right! ]
I personally think he missed out on the better tour - the US where the ability to speak in complete sentences is regarded as a miracle after so long with a monkey at the helm (sorry I'm likely insulting monkeys here). Everyone here can't get enough of Tony but then the majority of people wanted to go to war in Iraq. Oh and its easier to like someone you didn't vote for and doesn't actually have anything to do with running your country.

If Tony had a pair he'd be touring the UK apologising!!

But back to Alex. Alex Salmond has a tough job ahead of him. He will be the first person to actually test out the theory of devolution: the theory that the Scottish Parliament actually has control over a chunk of their own affairs. He has a minority government and will have to govern Scotland by doing things the way devolution was set up to do them - by cooperation between rival parties for the betterment of the common good of the country.

So far, Alex is doing a great job of trying to achieve this.

But, as Mark Douglas-Home writes in today's Observer, the issue for Alex will be communicating with the PM (Gordon). There has been little need for much coordination of such things before as all the First ministers of Scotland and Wales have until now been members of the Labour Party. They are all in the same club, singing from the same hymn sheet.

Uh oh! Alex is not in the club - he's not even allowed in the car park!! (although I don't think he wants to go anywhere near the sewer infested place...) He's likely to be pushed around by the members, be picked on as the odd one out. He really is the weakling considering he has to operate in a mode of cooperation or his governing days are over.

So what has happened? Tony disnae phone. Gordon has to have his arm twisted (press outcry) and 'sorta' phone but make sure and do it late. If this doesn't sound like bullying ....

Labour hate the SNP with vitriol. I'm sure Tony would rather walk naked through Baghdad before talking civilly with Alex Salmond - he may after all contract a case of "Salmond"ella.

Gordon is painting himself as more English than the English and wants to signal to England how much he cannot abide the man who will be governing the devolved Scottish Parliament - even though as MP for Kirkcauldy in Fife in Scotland that very man (Alex Salmond) will be making decisions that directly affect the people he (Gordon Brown) has been elected to serve.

All this is great. I love it. It shows blatantly how the Labour Party is a bastion of tradition which is out of date with the postmodern world. Tony and Gordon took to spinning till we all got dizzy but they can't hide the reality underneath. The SNP victory has slipped a knot in the carefully constructed fabric and the curtain is unravelling in front of the wizard of Oz.

Modern day Britain, modern day Scotland, modern day England, Wales, Northern Ireland are awash with multicultural aspects that no longer mold to traditional politics. The world is becoming more individualistic, more autonomous. Politics needs to catch up. I am excited at a political environment in Scotland where people have to debate, discuss and resolve issues for the common good. The system at Westminister has demonstrated how easy it is for a government with a big majority to allow an egotistical PM to do what he wishes - take the country to war against the wishes of its people.

The UK is one of the oldest democracies in the world. Before we make claims about exporting it, I think it would be good to address whether our system should be changed to fit with our changing world and country.

If Tony ever gets round to phoning Alex I'd love to hear Tony's excuse for being so late in calling....

Farewell my slippery friend!!

I would like to start off by stating a fact. Tony Blair is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He is not the head of state. He is not a president.

I am starting thus, not to enlighten my American readers (I flatter myself but my American readers are way too intelligent not to already be totally aware of this fact!) but rather to ground what I am to write in that fact. The press in the UK and the world are acting as if Blair is a president who is resigning. The level and degree of attention are completely in line with a presidential farewell.

The UK has no president. We have the Queen as our head of state. She is a figure head who firmly stays out of politics. We have a prime minister who is the leader of the ruling party of government. For the past ten years that has been New Labour and their leader has been Tony Blair. I have always thought this system to be a good one in theory. Good because no prime minister could get infected by a God complex and would always be kept in check by their party.

This theory worked to a degree. It worked until Margaret Thatcher. She changed things. She ruled by crushing her opposition. She was elected on the promise to put the "Great" back into Great Britain. So she attended international meetings as if Britain still ruled the waves and the world and bullied other leaders into place with her infamous handbag. Thatcher showed that given the right circumstances and leader, a God complex was indeed a possibility for a British Prime Minister.

This was the political culture that Tony Blair inherited. It is the form that he so quickly took. He quickly forgot that one of the main reasons for the 1997 landslide victory for New Labour (N.B. New Labour not Tony Blair) was that the country wished to be delivered from the ruling hegemony of Thatcherism. The UK was asking for deliverance from a political policy dictated by one prominent ruling figure (John Major was a last gasp demonstrating how corrupt, embittered and pathetic the Tory party had become).

I voted for New Labour in 1997. I celebrated all night with my fellow students. I went to so many flats in Edinburgh where everyone was on a complete high. The clouds had parted and the sun was finally shining.

I remember discussing Tony. He seemed like a family man, a Christian - one of those who see their religious beliefs driving them to do good for the less fortunate in this world. We discussed all the wonderful people who would be forming the new government - John Prescott, Robin Cook, Jack Straw, and the wonderful gusty, leftist, Clare Short. Yes, we saw all the spin doctors following Blair at every step but we put that down to "whatever you have to do to get elected" and after the hell the country had been through, the hell that was my only experience of political life in the UK, we were OK with the concept of "whatever it takes". Everything looked rosy and possible.

2007. The UK is a better place to live for a great many than it was in 1997. The NHS is better funded, education is better funded, the poor are better taken care of and the economy has been strong as an ox for ten years. New Labour have under Blair managed a great deal of success.

So why all the cheering for Blair's departure? Should this post be about how the UK will go to the dogs without Blair and everything is doomed?

Blair over ten years has embodied the much quoted saying "Power corrupts and Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely". He took his inheritance from Thatcher and wore the presidential pretender badge with pride.

He charmed the world. He and Clinton were great buddies. Both can charm the socks off a centipede and they know how to play the game of media spin. But they both had a certain grounding. I do believe they both saw it as their responsibility to improve people's lives - but only on the "down low". Neither wanted to offend anyone with a large bank balance. Instead they courted them. But while the rich weren't looking they quietly improved the situation for the poor around the world (Africa for example) and fought for injustices where they found them (Kosovo).

I believe that Blair with Clinton by his side had a degree of sincerity and maturity which enabled the two of them to use the "special" relationship between the US and UK to better ends. Northern Ireland is now a country at peace because of the brave steps they took. Collecting debt repayments from poor African countries became something to be ashamed of and concern that we may be harming our own environment became something that was accepted.

Until 2001 I believe Tony Blair was doing a good job. Perfect? No. But good. I didn't like the media hype and spin that followed him around like a bad smell but I felt proud of my little country.

I think the point of Blair's undoing, the seed of his unpopularity in the UK, the moment he changed from Blair to BLIAR was when the supreme court gave the US presidential election to George W Bush. Bush and his cronies have poisoned America. So many people are angry with him. So many people are so sad at what the American nation has become. He slipped into the presidency like a snake. His residence at the White House has felt like a bad dream.

When I witnessed Blair befriending Bush I thought it a bit odd. I presumed, along with others, that Blair, being from a center-left party, would have little in common with Bush and that there may likely be some conflict between the two men.

Then September 11th happened and everyone in America "rallied around the President for the sake of the country" (I didn't see the need to rally round him, more ask questions of how this could happen on his watch - but that's another post). Blair said some eloquent things. He sounded like the serious leader speaking with reason and judgement. He wasn't going to shout about 'smoking anyone out of a hole'.

Ah ha, I thought this is why Blair had befriended Bush. He would be the voice of reason guiding this snake away from creating harm in the world. He would appear the lapdog but really be the sheepdog guiding things from behind the scenes.

I forgot, we all forgot in Britain about Tony's religion. It wasn't reason, or the political guidance of the world's superpower that steered Blair to Bush but rather their religious convictions. I believe that one major reason that the US and UK are in Iraq right now if because of the shared belief that these two men have that rescuing this country from Saddam is the just and right thing to do in the eyes of God. Whether it is conscious or not the whole thing smacks of the crusades. Bush also had God put in a word for him to make a huge amount of cash out of the project - Tony on the other hand was just happy being right.

This is the point when Blair went off the boil in the UK. I was in Scotland for the first part of 2003 and I remember watching the BBC news reports that showed that they were considering taking action against Saddam. I remember thinking they've got to be crazy, what does Saddam have to do with Al Qaeda? I remember rubbing my eyes in disbelief as they started trotting out "evidence" of why we should invade Iraq.

I wasn't the only one rubbing my eyes. The whole of the UK was in jaw dropping disbelief. Where was the Blair we elected? Where was the Labour Party, all be it "New" and shiny? I naively believed that the leftist MPs in the Labour party would keep this kind of thing in check. I was wrong.

Blair has created a structure of power within the New Labour Party where he governs in the mold of the politburo of Stalin's Soviet Union. There are circles of power with him at the center controlling everything. My friends and I have always been amazed that every cabinet reshuffle changes the names of the cabinet ministers but everything remains exactly the same.

Blair has taken the God complex from Thatcher to a whole new level. He had the nerve to take a country to war kicking and screaming. He ignored mass protest by the electorate who voted him in. He was no longer representing the people. He was representing himself. The whole Iraq fiasco has felt like a deep betrayal to the UK people. Instead of listening to the country, Blair decided to 'do what was good for us' as if we were an incapable child.

It does not feel good that the Iraq war has been such a disaster. It does not feel good to know that my gut instinct watching the BBC news in 2003 was correct. It does not feel good to know that Blair and Bush were wrong.

This is why Blair is deeply unpopular in the UK. It makes me angry that after what he has dragged us through in Iraq he can give a sugar coated, slick press conference full of emotion to announce the date of his resignation (the date - not his actual resigning like Harold Wilson did). All his pomp and circumstance being drawn out over his long farewell are sickening. There has been no apology over Iraq only carefully drafted spin that hints at it. Blair said in his "farewell" speech

"Removing Saddam and his sons from power, as with removing the Taliban, was over with relative ease. But the blowback since, from Global Terrorism and those elements that support it, has been fierce and unrelenting and costly."

This is no apology and his careful referencing of the Taliban and Saddam together shows his continuing adherence to the Bush doctrine of invading Iraq under the auspices of his "War on Terror". Blair shows that he does not believe him to have been wrong only those pesky terrorists who keep popping up like a hydra.

I am glad Blair is going. It has taken him a long time to go. He claims he is going for the good of the country. He is going because his party is forcing him to. He is going out like a victor in blaze of glory but behind all the fireworks and staged crowds the UK knows this charmer for who he really is. He is a snake in the same mold as George W Bush.

Going going going going going......

Blair is to stand down on June 27th. The longest farewell in UK politics. The presidential pretender announced his decision amidst his faithful supporters in his home constituency.

The UK media have finally been able to take their carefully crafted pieces on Blair down off the shelf and use them (after blowing off the dust). The Guardian has a big section (and I don't know if it is just coincidence but they've a new look website too - the UK is changing already?), the BBC too but I particularly like Nick Robinson's post on his blog and the multitude of comments.

I know its difficult for Americans to comprehend (with W and cronies in power) but Tony Blair is deeply unpopular in the UK. He is not our president so we voted in the New Labour party back into government not "Tony Blair" - he just happens to be the leader of the party. Yes, he has a brain and yes, he knows big words and how to use them but his arrogance, self importance and spin spin spin have left most in the UK glad to see him gone.

Oh and there's IRAQ.

It takes a real brass neck to go to war without the support of your country behind you.

I am going to read and ponder further before ranting fully on the man who says he will leave soon ..................

UK Spin

It was an interesting day for me in the blogosphere yesterday. I got angry at my country being accused of banning the Holocaust when it was untrue. I was really surprised by how upset I got and considering my recent post on what life like an expat is like, I suppose I am still very much patriotic for home in spite of all New Labours bungling and Blair's obedience to his master Bush. I still believe in the integrity of the country I grew up in. I believe in the justice system and the press (excluding the Daily Mail!!) to keep that same system in check.

However as I also wrote in my last post, I was taught in History lessons, in Scotland, all about the causes for the First and Second World Wars. Hitler's rise to power was facilitated by certain factors all lining up. It wasn't that Germany suddenly woke up and decided to persecute the Jews. It was a long build up of perception that the Jews were causing or aggravating the plight of the "german" people. And whilst the UK has not banned the holocaust from the class room, what I learnt in history tells me to be extra vigilant in looking for the signs that resentment is building in a civilised nation to where it could tip into uncivilised thinking and actions.

July 7th 2005 began murmurings in the press and society in general in Britain about Muslims. I remember talking with my friends about it. It was awkward. How do you address fanaticism in the Muslim community? How do you address a group of people who like to create their own community within a society and do not necessarily want to assimilate? How do you address the growing feeling that immigrants are changing the country from how it has always been perceived?

The UK is still very much a class based society. The recent split between Prince William and Kate Middleton has allowed the aristocracy to reveal their distaste for Kate because of her aspiring upper middle class mother and return William to the fold and set about finding him a true blue blood for the future throne. Oxford and Cambridge are still bastions of privilege and old boys clubs. Yahs still frequent the trendy bars in Edinburgh. Which school you went to and who your father is can still get you further in the UK than ability alone.

The difference now is that this class based society does not want to be seen as such. David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, has gone out of his way to prevent a photograph of himself being published. Is he nude? No. Is he drunk? No. Is he wearing women's clothes? No. He is photographed as part of an elitist old boys club in Cambridge. He is in short, photographed as a toff!! He knows this is not the image to win votes. You have to be young cool, green and hip with none of the stuffiness of Oxford dons or polo matches.

The UK is a country of spin, thanks to New Labour. This is a country where perceptions are spun to hide the truth beneath. So we elected a party and prime minister in 1997, who was young cool and hip (alas not green enough..) and who seemed to care for people and making a difference in a way the population was starved of after so much thatcherite incompetency. That election was incredible. The whole country was on a high. It was like the good guys had finally triumphed over the forces of darkness and were riding home in victory. It was infectious.

Finally rid of the Tories, the UK seemed like it may modernise and shake off the class ridden power basis. We may find that the UK could become one of those trendy socialist countries that everyone is envious of - Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland. That was the perception. That was the spin.

Underneath it all everything was the same. We were made to feel one thing when the reality was something different. So I suppose we did "modernise" into the ultimate "postmodern" country of Baudrillard's "Simulacra" where we are always spun away from reality. I did not know of Tony Blair's righteous Christian beliefs. I did not for a moment think that He and George Bush would have anything in common. New Labour might have had a face lift but surely they were supposed to be somewhat close to the left? Blair's beliefs had me thinking he was one of those Christians who truly care about the poor and helping people and to be fair I think some of that is true. But I was totally unaware that that would morph into a "holier than thou" attitude that invading foreign lands to liberate suffering people was OK. I suppose the high he got upon being first elected must have lasted too long.

Britain is a country of two faces. One is the outward modern one that has a diverse multicultural society that welcomes immigrants (I personally believe that after taking over half the world its only right that those people we colonised should be able to come and live in the UK too - although I can guarantee they won't like the weather). The other is a conservative class structure that wishes to preserve power and influence. I fear what would happen if the conservative elite ever felt truly threatened. I fear they would hold onto power at all costs. The compromise right now is that through the spinning of the simulacra everyone can feel hip and cool and modern and open and free whilst the mechanism doing the spinning is the same fixed structure that its always been.