Posted 4:56 PM by Paul
Bush in London - Bring Him On



So George W Bush comes to town next week. The White House security team caused a certain amount of incredulous mirth with their initial demand that the whole of Central London be shut down for 3 days to protect the President. But from whom?

The terrorist threat is real enough and growing fast thanks to our ill advised invasion and occupation of Iraq, but if they are smart Al Quaida would fund Bush's re-election campaign rather than blow him up. After all he is their best recruiting sergeant. Even Tony Blair could not swing the shut down plan that would have cost maybe $100,000,000 in lost revenues.

Any fool can see that the White House is trying to protect Bush from the political effects of prime time TV images of tens of thousands of Brits calling for the President to get on Airforce One and head back to Lubbock. Blair is looking decidedly sheepish. He planned this entire visit as a Roman Triumph - the loyal pro-consul riding in glory with the Emperor down the Mall lined with cheering crowds. Now it has turned out to be an enormous embarrassment.

Hopefully we won't have any complete tossers burning the Stars and Stripes but there is always going to be at least one idiot. The Vietnam vet who wrote Born on the 4th of July will be at the main Trafalgar Square demonstration and hopefully he will be on the platform as an antidote to the usual crowd of old school lefties and " I told you so" liberals.

Uncle Tony Benn will be on the mike as usual giving us all a history lesson. His son Hilary (only posh men are called Hilary - for plebs like me this is a girl's name) is an ex-left winger who is now in the Government and an enthusiastic supporter of compulsory ID cards and invading foreign lands. I wonder how father and son will get on over Christmas dinner? Sadly the British Left still has not quite grasped that it might be time to have some younger voices leading the charge and put the old guys out to grass. There is still an enormous deference to the socialist patriarchs of old. The most articulate demolition of the case for war in Iraq I have ever heard was made by a couple of 17 year old girls who were interviewed by a smirking condescending "know it all" from the BBC. Step forward Andrew Marr.

So on the 19th demonstrators will be toppling a huge papier mache effigy of Bush in a Saddam style re-enactment of the "end" of the war and the British Government will be doing its best to keep the bad news off CNN and the BBC. Will this change anything? No. But at least everyone on the demonstration will have had the opportunity to protest at being treated like silly children who cannot be trusted with the truth.

And for my American friends I have two questions.

- Will the widespread opposition to Dubya from main stream Main Street UK get any coverage in the States?

- Is the Bush team secretly financing Howard Dean's Democratic primary campaign? Clearly they would prefer to face a New England Liberal in November 2004 rather than someone who can win.

It's a thought.