The Blair Essentials

Tony Blair. Anthony Charles Lynton Blair. What a nasty, treacherous, mendacious, evil little puppet he is. Statesman for sale to the highest bidder. Start a war, become peace envoy. Deliberately adulterate a tolerant population, then decry those among it who find tolerance a one-way street. Declaim “education, education, education” then preside over a sustained and quite deliberate erosion of the same. Cast aside that same deluded, under-educated generation in favour of your cheaper, imported wage-slaves then label racist all who speak up for them.

The New Labour project marked a deliberate separation of the British people from its democracy and ushered in a new politics, practised by and for an entirely political class. The last few dinosaurs – politicians who had previously worked in ordinary jobs for a living – are rapidly becoming extinct; those currently in office who can claim non-political work experience come largely from the law, the newspapers or, bizarrely, the world of entertainment. Soon, however, only the direct political entrant will have a chance of being nominated.

Politics, national, corporate or familial was always a game based on power before principle, office before efficacy, but at least it ultimately had to serve, albeit imperfectly, the greater good of those who gave it power. But the gradual shift away from dependency on the electorate seemed to enter a new phase under Blair. Under his imperious reign politicians no longer asked what the people wanted but smugly told them what they were going to get… and what they would get if they didn’t like it. The old joke “It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always gets in” became a joke no more.

Political parties no longer engage the public who just feel that that wherever you place your ‘X’ it makes little difference. They don’t get the local man or woman who knows them and will represent their concerns. If it’s a safe seat they get a quota-filler, or a spotty-faced political dynasty product in the form of a mini-Blair/Straw/Prescott who will contemptuously hoover up their tribal loyalty then ignore them until the next election. If it’s a vital marginal they will witness a bout between rising Westminster superstars, none of whom will give a fuck once the voting’s done.

And even in the face of the current ‘interesting times’ their only concerns are how to counter the appeal of other parties, how to play the political game, but never how best to serve those whose votes they crave. Once upon a time the electorate turned out in force and had the power to unseat the ineffective but more often than not today people neither know nor care who their MP is; it makes no difference so they just don’t bother. Elections are decided on a dwindling turnout of the politically motivated and nobody else matters.

Which Blair project?

Then, once they are in post their sights are set on higher goals – European commission positions where votes simply don’t matter; all they have to do is follow the bidding of their new political masters and the little people, those countless millions who have to live with the disastrous consequences of shallow political whimsy, are powerless. Remember all this as you watch Tony Blair, who is once again on manoeuvres for such a position. And when Anthony Charles Lynton Blair finally ascends, god-like, to the Euro-throne, say a prayer for the soul of our dear, departed democracy.