January 23, 2004
NO CHECKS AND BALANCES:
Don't cheer if Hutton brings down Blair (Mick Hume, 23 January 2004, spiked)
[I]f Blair was brought down by the sort of criticisms generated around the Hutton Inquiry, it could set back the cause of radical change even further, by reinforcing today's conservative anti-politics atmosphere.
We can already see some clear signs of what public life will look like after Hutton. The body politic has been effectively paralysed since the inquiry was set up last year. That state of paralysis seems set to continue and worsen, regardless of who sits in Number 10 Downing Street. [...]Another retrograde trend that seems likely to accelerate after Hutton is the attempt to substitute official inquiries for political debate and action. It now appears as if anytime anything happens, from a war to the suicide of an unknown civil servant or a television programme about some racist police trainees, there immediately follow high-level demands for a full inquiry. Twenty years ago it was the left that popularised the idea that inquiring into a problem was the same thing as doing something about it. That delusion now seems to have spread to New Labour and the Tories.
Rather than fight for political ideas and interests that they believe in, elected representatives today seem keen to avoid political battles and abdicate responsibility for resolving issues. Instead they will leap at the chance to hand matters over to an inquiry, where a judge or some other apparently neutral, unaccountable figure can spend months or years establishing 'the truth', Solomon-style. If this substitution of judicial process for politics goes much further, we may find ourselves living under a system of government-by-inquiry.
No doubt the authorities hope that these inquiries will help to re-establish public confidence. In fact they are likely to have the opposite effect. After all, they are premised on the assumption that public bodies cannot be trusted, and that everybody has something to hide that must be brought out into the open. The result of these inquiries is invariably to reinforce suspicions about conspiracies and cover-ups, leading to calls for yet more inquiries. So the Hutton inquiry has already prompted demands from left and right alike for a full-scale inquiry into the basis on which Britain joined America's war against Saddam Hussein. This should not be mistaken for a political challenge to wars of intervention. It is more the latest expression of cynicism about politics in general.
That anti-politics mood is also likely to be reinforced post-Hutton by the trend for emotionally driven individuals to be granted the moral authority to pass judgement on political issues and elected politicians. The reduction of the political to the personal (and increasingly, the petty) means that those with a personal claim, especially those cast in the role of victim, can stake out the moral high ground on any issue.
Here we see the wisdom of the Founders in creating a Republic which is to a great extent buffered from the fickleness of rapid popular opinion change. For Britain to discard the best leader it's had in several centuries over something as trivial as how ready to hand Saddam's WMD were would be deranged.
MORE:
Blair's Longest Day: My name is Tony Blair … and this will be the longest day of my premiership. The following takes place between 12.00pm on January 27 and 12.00pm on January 28, when I have to save the world … and my job (James Cusick, 1/20/04, Sunday Herald)
Well, I don't know about that "several centuries" thing, but since all that's left of Winston Churchill's famous defiant attitude is his parrot, getting rid of Blair would be a major setback for Great Britian right now, and for the Labour Party in particular.
Posted by: John at January 23, 2004 02:58 PMMaybe they could appoint an Independent Counsel... Oh never mind.
Posted by: jeff at January 23, 2004 03:50 PMBlair is hardly, "the best leader it's had in several centuries." If you want a more measured accolade why don't we choose from among the following three alternatives.
1)Blair is Great Britain's third best Prime Minister during the last one hundred years.
2)Blair's superior insight into Britain's best long term interests in foreign policy were especially impressive given the unrelenting opposition of the majority of his own Labor party members and his consequent need to cross the aisle for Conservative support of his agenda.
3)Blair's willingness to put Britain's foreign policy interests before his own political survival was a tremendous display of selfless political courage. Blair also displayed immense courage of his convictions in overriding Labor's irrational distrust of the nation's long established American ally even when the maintenance of that American alliance conflicted with the remainder of his foreign policy agenda ie conclusion of the European Union initiatives.
Posted by: Ray Clutts at January 23, 2004 04:20 PMC'mon Juice...better than the 3d most loved woman in your life, Lady Thatcher?
(I'm assuming the Wife and Mom occupy spots #1 and #2.)
Posted by: Foos at January 23, 2004 05:17 PMRay:
Churchill, like Truman, wiffed on the two big issues at the end of WWII: talking out the USSR and getting rid of the social welfare state.
and it's not fair to compare a mere mortal to Mrs. Thatcher.
That takes us back to Cromwell for his competition.
Posted by: oj at January 23, 2004 07:12 PMHardly fair to compare Tony Blair to the goddess Thatcher.
Posted by: oj at January 23, 2004 07:23 PMDisraeli anyone? Good grief. Blair's support for our country is something no American patriot can forget, but one glance at his domestic policies will show him for a dangerous and damaging fraud. Look at his leadership of the Angilican Church; look at the state of Britain's cities, her welfare state, her education system.
Posted by: Paul Cella at January 24, 2004 09:55 AMDisraeli, like Churchill, was a matriarch.
Posted by: oj at January 24, 2004 09:58 AMAnd Blair is a heresiach.
Posted by: Paul Cella at January 24, 2004 10:46 AMActually, he's an orthodox Catholic, he just can't announce that while he's head of state.
Posted by: oj at January 24, 2004 11:38 AMRight; that explains why he appointed a man as Archbishop of Canterbury who will preside over the enshrining of the homosexual heresy into Anglican doctrine.
It also must explain why his speech to our Congress last spring went well beyond Rousseau in its advocacy of radical egalitarianism and "the rights of man": both of which philosophies were deliberate revolts against the older orthodox Catholic philosophy of natural law. You know, the one expounded by, say, Augustine and Aquinas.
Posted by: Paul Cella at January 24, 2004 12:57 PMThe Archbishop seems to recognize that the Church's future lies in Africa, not Britain, and ultimately in Rome.
Posted by: oj at January 24, 2004 01:02 PMHuh? He ignores the Africans, or implicitly rebukes them by failing to discipline the wayward Americans. And he goes to Rome only to be lectured (rightly) about his indulgence sexual innovation in the Church.
Meanwhile, he muses about the "serious moral goals."
If your need to defend Blair leads you to defend Rowan Williams, then you have been duped.
Posted by: Paul Cella at January 24, 2004 01:22 PMOops! that should have read "the 'serious moral goals' of the terrorists."
Posted by: Paul Cella at January 24, 2004 01:24 PMhttp://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/140/11.0.html
Posted by: oj at January 24, 2004 01:37 PMOrrin:
You keep referring to Blair as head of state. He isn't, he is head of government and in no way represents or embodies any fundamental principles or attributes of the nation he leads.
We are not amused!
Posted by: Peter B at January 25, 2004 08:28 AMSadly that's what y'all have done to yourselves. Far better if the monarchy still had some power.
Posted by: oj at January 25, 2004 08:34 AM