Matthew Parris writes his usual anti-Blair-anti-Brown rant in the Times today. Apparently Mr Brown is a "coward" for not taking advantage of the hounding of Mr Blair by the press, to put the knife in.
If you look at the situation objectively, it makes no difference to the Labour party, or to the country at large, if Mr Blair goes now or in the summer. It takes a long time to organise a Labour leadership contest in any case. And in the meanwhile, the economy continues to grow, the sun continues to rise each morning and the earth continues to spin on it's axis. So why the agitation for Blair to go right now?
I believe that Tories like Parris are twisted with frustration that Labour has not humiliated Blair the way the Tories humiliated Thatcher. All this hounding is aimed at goading the Labour party into a repeat performance of 1990.
As usual though, Parris displays his ignorance of the Labour party. All this vitriol would be just the thing to motivate Tories into attacking their leader (that blood-thirsty lot hardly need an excuse). But it has the opposite effect on the Labour party which is more tribal.
I can't remember when I last felt so protective towards Mr Blair. Given that I was against the Iraq war and angrily voted LibDem in 2005 as a protest, this is quite an achievement of Mr Parris. I doubt I'm the only person feeling this way. The public not only dislike it when people turn on their leader, they dislike unfairly smearing someone and pronouncing them guilty when they not even been charged, let alone tried and convicted. And they are also aware of the pointlessness of this agitation for Blair to leave, especially as he's said he's leaving anyway.
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3 comments:
The usual reaction of goodwilling people before attacks on one particular person is of pity, something to praise them for.
But there is something that is very important in the case of politicians. As you yourself say you were decidedly against the war in Iraq in which Blair personally and openly had so much intervention against the general feelings of the British people.
On the other hand, it is difficult to shape an old political party as Labour is in the image of a new leader, and this should be taken into account by the British in general lest, as we say here, "the remedy be worse than the ailment", democratically speaking.
What is paramount, in my opinion, is the "cull" of Labour politicians so that the ideal leader be chosen with an aim to have her/him for a foreseen long time at the helm.
There was a point where I thought the Tories in the press and in their party smelt blood in the water, but increasingly I think this stuff is just desperation.
I've recently realised that Parris has been writing this anti-Blair-anti-Brown stuff since the moment of election in 1997.
I understand that on the day after the 1997 election, he wrote a column telling readers that everything would be scewed up within a year and exhorting them to cut out and keep the column so they could get it out the next year (1998), when things would allegdly be a mess, and they would realise a) what a wonderful predictor Parris was (!) and b) how foolish everyone had been to vote Labour in 1997!!!
If I find the column, I'll post a link to it.
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