Posted 9:55 AM by Paul
The Ayes Had It

It's strange to see someone who was so totally in control start to fall apart. Falling back on assertion and bombast when charm and reason have deserted them.

Blair was on TV for what seemed like the millionth time this week defending his position on the new European Constitution. It wasn't going to make any difference to our lives because he had stood up personally for Britsh interests against those nasty Europeans. Hurrah for Tony. He used the first person pronoun 6 times inside a minute.

I didn't do this...I did that..I have to make difficult choices.

It is as if he sees the whole of world as a personal struggle between him and the forces of reaction..anti-Americanism...zenophobia...Fill in the enemy of the week.

He then topped it off with an aside. " I mean (leans forward, slight smirk) It's not like I - [ that word again ] did this to give people another reason to have a go at me..I think I have enough of that already."

He was asking to feel sorry for him. Why don't we leave him alone. He's had such a hard time of it, what with Iraq and all. This really is scraping the barrel. His media advisers must have been squirming when they watched the video replay. Their star player has gone to pieces. But they are still trying to play the LEADERSHIP card. Nobody seems to have told the spin doctors that the millions of autonomous individuals that make up the electorate and who are bombarded with messages every day proclaiming the desirability of individual choice don't actually want a Henry V in a grey double breated suit.

In this sense New Labour is now an anachronism. They think they are modern when really they are old hat. A global world view straight out of the 1890s [bringing enlightenment to the natives] and a political style straight out of 1990s Australia.

Only sad and obsessional people like me will remember that the Australian Labour PM Paul Keating went to the polls in 1997 under the single word slogan LEADERSHIP. It was all about him. The Spanish Socialists went to the polls on the same weak talking about community. Running out of steam and with their charismatic leader Felipe Gonzalez mired in corruption scandals they chose a less bombstic and more collegiate style of politics. They even admitted that they had made mistakes. Lots of We and very little I.

My old friend Tom Watson - now a Labour MP but then an organiser at Labour Party HQ in Millbank rang to say that it was sad but the view was that Felipe would get thrashed but Paul Keating would squeeze back in. I agreed. Absolutely. No question.

Paul Keating suffered a landslide defeat and dissapeared from politics.
Felipe lost narrowly and can now be seen smiling on the back benches happy that his party is back in power but staying out of the limelight. He always knew that it was about more than him.