FACE IT TONY... YOU'RE FINISHED
Routhledge
The Mirror
Mar 14 2003
IT is over. The Blair decade, which has dominated British politics since the death of John Smith, is moving to a close.
The events of recent days have robbed the Prime Minister of all credibility. Even the Americans, who propped him up for their own political and military purposes, have abandoned him.
His proposal of six tests for Saddam Hussein's disarmament has been ridiculed by Washington, because President Bush is going to have his war whatever the risk to Tony Blair's reputation at home.
When the man who you thought was your best mate hangs you out to dry, you know your time is up.
It may not feel like it right now, because Blair is good at talking up his premiership. At Prime Minister's Questions two days ago, he showed what an accomplished fraud he is.
But listen to your uncle Paul - it is finished. I feel it in my bones. I hear it from MPs. Even one of Tony's cronies, who paid good money to buy the Labour leadership for him, has privately admitted it to a backbencher.
Ironically, he looks strong. Rulers always are, until the very point when they are not.
The Greek colonels who seized power in the 60s were strong, until their power evaporated overnight. General Suharto, the murderous ruler of Indonesia, was strong, until his people rose up. Ferdinand Marcos, the corrupt US puppet ruler of the Philippines, was strong, until people-power dethroned him. I know. I was there.
So it will be with Anthony Charles Lynton Blair. He looks firmly entrenched in power. He has a huge majority. He has a supine national executive. He even has the support of an Australian conman to advise his wife about the property market. But the inner core is weak. Why? Because the whole construct is a fake. He does not believe in anything but a weird, self-deluding notion that he has a divine mission to sort out the world.
I don't remember much about the Attlee government. I do remember the other four post-war Labour governments previous to this one, and, contrary to "expert" opinion, they were not bad. At least, they were recognisably Labour.
This one is only intermittently so and then usually by accident. And the reason for that is to be found in the nature and personality of the leader and, by extension, those with whom he surrounds himself in government.
The fact that he is such an admirer of Peter Mandelson tells us everything. Anybody who can be taken in by that snake-oil salesman is wholly lacking in judgment.
LOOK, it will take time for reality to sink in. Politicians are usually the last to sniff what is going on outside SW1. But the punters know. A million people came to London to make their voices heard about the immoral war against Iraq.
That was the real turning point. Not the slow handclap Blair got on Trevor McDonald's show, entertaining though it was. Not even America's disdain for Yankee Poodle Dandy. It is when the people turn against you that you know the game is up.
I do not know how or when the end will come. Blair may drag out his rotten premiership for months. Or he could go with spectacular suddenness. It doesn't matter much how it happens, as long as it does. If he has any common decency, he will go without subjecting his party and government to a long, damaging fight for survival.
Echoing the words of Oliver Cromwell to the Long Parliament in 1653 and Leo Amery to Chamberlain in 1940, I say to Tony Blair today: "In the name of God, go!" >>>> |
