What it's come to

I am sort of watching (intermittently listening to) PMQs on the TV (Prime Minister's Questions for those not familiar with British politics, and no, I can't explain what it is, you will just have to watch it sometime.) I see in the Guardian that support for Labour has slipped to a 20-year low, and that the Conservatives have a chance at coming back to power. How can they be so stupid? Also in the Guardian is this excellent comment piece from Simon Jenkins on Iraq.

This country has been turned by two of the most powerful and civilised nations on Earth into the most hellish place on Earth. Armies claiming to bring democracy and prosperity have brought bloodshed and a misery worse than under the most ruthless modern dictator. This must be the stupidest paradox in modern history. Neither America nor Britain has the guts to rule Iraq properly, yet they lack the guts to leave.
Blair speaks of staying until the job is finished. What job? The only job he can mean is his own.

The best die young, part II

Mo Mowlam passed away yesterday after a period of grave illness. She survived a brain tumour several years ago. Among other glowing tributes, Prime Minister Tony Blair said of her:

It is no exaggeration to say she transformed the politics not just of Northern Ireland itself but crucially of relations between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, and it was this transformation that created the culture in which peace-making could flourish.

Robin Cook dies after collapse on mountain

In the UK as in the US, it seems that the best die young. Robin Cook was only 59, with possibly the best part of his already brilliant political career ahead of him. This is a very sad turn of events.

Nuclear energy battle looming

Margaret Beckett is accused of blocking the government from considering building new nuclear power plants as part of its strategy for achieving carbon emission reductions. On one side of the argument, some government policy wonks think solar and wind energy are "unproven" and too expensive, and say nuclear power has the "potential" to be green. But committed environmentalists will never buy that. How can a technology be called "green" if it produces deadly wastes? I myself would have to come down on the no-nukes-ever (what part of "no" don't they understand?) side of the argument.

Blair is election liability, warn Labour aides

The Observer reports on trouble within the Labour election camp. Tony Blair is too "presidential". He must now appear with cabinet members at his side, and Gordon Brown will be put more to the forefront. Oh, the irony of it.

The Minister, the Mistress, the Husband and the Pregnancy or Peyton Place, London W1

While I was in temporary retirement, as I said below, strange things were in the news. This, of course, is the other big story in the UK for the past couple of weeks. In fact, much bigger than the fall from grace of the Sikhs, one of Britain's most respected minority communities. For those who live in outer space, or the US, the story thus far:

• Home Secretary David Blunkett is exposed as having had an affair with a married woman, Kimberley Quinn, just as it falls, very messily, apart.


• Blunkett initiates a paternity suit to prove that Quinn's two year old son and unborn child are both his.


• When the simple fact of adultery is not proving salacious enough to end a brilliant career, allegations of special favours through his office for the Quinn's nanny begin to surface . . .


• . . . and allegations of Mrs. Quinn being transported by rail at government expense under the guise of being Home Secretary's spouse(-to-be, according to him).


• PM stands by Blunkett. (No link necessary; he always does that.)


• Oh, did I mention that the lover was pregnant when all this started to unravel?


• With exquisitely poor timing, Blunkett's biography is published, in which he rips holes out of almost every one of his cabinet colleagues, thus leaving himself more friendless, precisely when he most needs support.


• Government starts investigation of Nanny-gate and train ticket scandals


• Multi-millionaire husband of Quinn defends her as she is taken into hospital suffering from stress.


• Blunkett resigns, claiming he is willing to sacrifice all "for the sake of that little lad".


• Blunkett's defenders say he is a working-class victim of a cabal of rich people.
  
• Oh, did I mention that Kimberley Quinn is the publisher of prominent Conservative magazine? Yes, that's the opposition party, e.g., "sleeping with the enemy" with bells on.


• By a few days ago, many could not decide whose behaviour was most disgusting, Mr. Blunkett's or Mrs. Quinn's.


• Political columnist and radio host is revealed to be also a lover of Mrs. Quinn, along with possibly a mysterious "fourth man".


• Mrs. Quinn has apparently kept a detailed diary of the whole affair.

Do you think I am capable of making stuff like this up?

Tony's legacy

Are you listening, Tony? Some representative quotes from historians predicting T. Blair's "place in history" in the Guardian's How Will He Be Judged?:

Constitutionally, his place in history will be as the prime minister who, when things seemed to be going well, ran a pseudo-presidential system which, as well as being alien to the British constitution, was monumentally inefficient. (Lord Gilmour)

History, I believe, will judge Blair harshly. I think what most historians will emphasise is the profound disappointment Blair engendered. . . (Richard Overy)

British politics doesn't appreciate Caesarism or the Bonapartist style. (Lord Morgan)

By stealing the Conservatives most radical Thatcherite policies - war and privatisation - while offering the left nowhere to go, Blair's period in office could be seen in retrospect to mark the death of British politics. (Mark Almond)

Blair, Short suggests, is really a Tory who has little interest in either constitutional matters such as reform of the House of Lords, or in quotidian, but vital, domestic issues such as genuine equality of opportunity in health or education. He wants in with the ... deliverers, the saviours, the victors crowned in battle. And that, she was saying, is not what the Labour party is, or should be, all about. (Stella Tillyard)

Since the days of Thatcher, Britain has never been so respected (which is not to be confused with liked) abroad than under a prime minister who bestrides the world stage with energy and purpose. (Michael Burleigh)