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to see just how far down the river Blair has sold the Labour Party. Many in the party feel disgust with the events of the last couple of years, and utter horror at the bedfellows he has chosen.
I never followed politics particularly enthusiastically until the late 90's, so my earliest memory of Blair is a cozy interview he gave during the Labour leadership contest after John Smith had died of a heart attack. I recall him discussing his Christianity, unusual in British politics; he said that he believed his socialism was a natural product of his faith, that Christ's teachings were essentially those of Socialism.
He seemed like the right candidate for the job, at least a candidate with a fresh approach. We were sick of losing, particularly after the previous election, won by that f--ing gnome John Major.
The clues started coming as to what we might expect, when, at the Labour Party Conference of 97, Blair appeared on-stage in a dazzling explosion of pyrotechnics, like some grinning political Christ, gazing fervently up and out, toward the cheap seats and the bright future. Blair announced that we were a New Labour Party, with New ideas, and New policies. The old Labour base, desperate for anything that might get rid of the bastard Tories, went along with him; after all, he was a consummate politician, and though the son of a conservative, one of their own.
As he dragged them relentlessly toward the political fence, he soothed them with assurances, "Patience, we have to win first." Once we had won, in an unprecedented landslide, Blair set about fulfilling all the promises he had made in order to appeal to the disillusioned conservatives that had given us our margin of victory, whilst simultaneously managing to ignore most of the promises he had made to his own party.
Since then, on almost any issue one cares to mention, he has improvised his way through this same political dance over and over again. The opposition tells him where the fence is, he trots over and sits on it, and then winks his party over only to realize they've only gone and moved the bloody fence again!
Most recently he has pirouetted effeminately across the world stage and into Iraq. His reasoning (which actually does make an insane kind of sense): an entirely unilateral America is a very dangerous and frightening America:
"Bush and the neo-cons want to drive a wedge into the old alliances in Europe? Er... Christ on a bike! We'd better fall out with them, and sharpish, or America will seem very dangerous and frightening to the rest of the world. Bush is manipulating intelligence/declaring pre-emptive war/lying through his teeth/bending me over? Crumbs! Better get on board, or America will seem very dangerous and frightening to the rest of the world... "
Etc.
Ad nauseam.
As a political animal Blair has learned to survive by becoming his enemy.
His demand for an apology from the BBC was the final straw for me.
It is sickening to think of the enemy he has become.
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