A View From Middle England - Conservative with a slight libertarian touch - For Christian charity and traditional belief - Free Enterprise NOT Covert Corporatism

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Proper Charlie or Soothsayer?

Charles Clarke has been grieving since he got sacked by the Spiv-in-Chief. He now thinks that Tony Blair has "lost his sense of purpose and direction". Previously Clarke was a fervent supporter of Blair, but he surely must have had his suspicions as to what Blair was doing in the Labour Party. The only purpose and direction Blair has had is making sure he succeeds by making others feel he is the only one - and causing them to rue the day they crossed his path. It does appear now that his sole purpose was in making the Labour Party electable. That in itself, however, has been debunked as it is now generally agreed that any leader would have won seeing the Tories were in meltdown in 1997!

Channel 4 has done sterling service over the years in "exposing" Blair's political chicanery. Drama-Documentaries such as Why We Went to War and The Deal show how he has traduced much of the heart and soul of the Labour Party. Those that are concerned are dismissed as being "Old Labour" but not everyone who is unsympathetic to the rootless desires of New Labour is a red-under-the-bed!

The BBC too has helped by giving Michael Cockerell time to make excellent programmes such as News From Number 10. In this there is a piece where Blair wanders into his press secretary's office to talk to Alastair Campbell without realising the BBC were filming there. He chats to Cockerell about getting press coverage and carries on by saying "And, as you know, it's not as if these stories don't take a life of their own and then start running away into the far distance. And then the public thinks 'oh, my goodness, why on earth are they doing that?' when you are not doing it at all. So you need to be able to get on top of the news, in so far as it's possible. But what matters to me most are to do the things that are really for the country... that's what I spend my time thinking about." Then he gets rebuked by the spinmeister Campbell, who comments "And that's why you have spent the past seven minutes talking to Michael Cockerell."

That moment showed Blair as being like a moth to the light where political life is concerned. Whatever one thinks of Blair's contribution to British politics it has been the stuff of journalists to question his very existence in the Labour Party, his liking for the trappings of business and his desire to move where money is. Most in the Labour Party accepted his vote-winning charms but were uneasy about his policy ideas. Now they feel he is an electoral liability and would prefer a return to a Labour movement that reflects the change in society but incorporates their political souls. For that to happen Blair has to step down.

Perhaps his 10th anniversary as PM would make sense. Then an election for a new leader would take place. Charles Clarke said he "would be very surprised" if an election did not happen. When it does, we will no doubt see a Labour Party embracing a far more corporate ethos and an interventionist role.

Tony Blair will by then be on the lucrative speaking circuit in the USA telling Americans all he knows!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/reviews/3142846.stm

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