Pages

Saturday 18 February 2017

The Blair enigma

You know nothing about people. Those who are interested in people do not get as rich as you have.

Sherwood Anderson - Like a Queen (1933)


Tony Blair is a weird creep isn’t he? Telling the British people they ought to rise up over Brexit can be viewed in a number of ways, but to my mind the idea is faintly senile. It isn’t going to happen and his intervention isn’t likely to be welcomed except perhaps by a small group of nostalgic nutters. He should know that but apparently not.
Tony Blair has said it is his "mission" to persuade Britons to "rise up" and change their minds on Brexit.

Speaking in the City of London, the former prime minister claimed that people voted in the referendum "without knowledge of the true terms of Brexit".

He urged "a way out from the present rush over the cliff's edge".

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said the comments were arrogant and undemocratic but Lib Dem Nick Clegg said he "agreed with every word".
So Nick Clegg agrees with him - strewth, there's an endorsement to be wary of. The Middle East and WMD did for Blair and screwed up whatever place in history he thought he may have earned. There is no way back from that. Apart from which he only has numbers; number of elections won, that kind of thing. Plus his erstwhile talent for manipulating the media I suppose. Doesn’t go far now. 

8 comments:

Sam Vega said...

I'm just coming to the end of Tom Bower's big book on the Blair premiership and its aftermath. Well worth a read, despite being quite poorly put together in the "ODTAA" ("One damn thing after another") style. What is quite striking is that, despite an obsession with legacy, he achieved virtually none of his goals. Foreign policy is obvious, but NHS, Education, Energy, Immigration, and Policing: he royally buggered the lot.

I think it quite possible that a consensus will develop that he was actually clinically insane in office.

The Jannie said...

And continues to be so.

CherryPie said...

I think Blair is worried about losing his EU pension...

wiggiatlarge said...

Blair was always an act, from the moment he won his first election and appeared with a mug of tea in Downing Street to meet the press he has followed this scripted lifestyle.
And now he is doing the same, from the position of an elder statesman he surfaces to regale all with his knowledge on how to solve things, this from a man who having failed as Prime Minister to achieve anything apart from spending large amounts of other peoples money then failed and was invisible as a "Middle East peace envoy", and still he appears with his practiced facial expressions and faux concern for the nation.

Anonymous said...

Blair may be vile but he is not stupid. I reckon he can smell a whiff of fear among MPs of every stripe as Daisy May lines up to pull the plug. Then Mrs May has played her cards close and may yet surprise. Messrs Bojo, Fox and Davis have had plenty of time and come up with - nada. Many a slip twixt cup and lip.

Sobers said...

I'm beginning to think David Icke was right. Not literally of course, but right in the sense there is a class of people who are in charge of many things, up to and including the very top as in Blair, who are completely 'otherly'. They just don't seem to reside on the same planet as everyone else. Brexit has been brilliant for exposing these people, because they are incapable of accepting defeat gracefully, and have shown their real nature - authoritarian, anti-democratic, amoral and totally self absorbed. Power and personal aggrandisement are the only things that they are there for.

Demetrius said...

Blair is one of the looters in the European project. He, his family and his ilk are the successors to all the servile hangers on, courtiers etc. of the ancient regimes who once looted the poor and humble of past ages to live in grandeur.

A K Haart said...

Sam - the book is available on Kindle so I may give it ago because whatever his faults he is an interesting character.

Jannie - it does.

Cherry - although he is quite wealthy now. I think he may be casting bread on the water out of habit.

Wiggia - it's what he does and he is good at it, but his lack of substance ought to have been obvious to those around him.

Roger - I think Blair is like all of us, shallow. He has his talent for charm and political networking but I don't see much else. I don't think he understands or cares about technical issues such as the slow eurozone train wreck.

Sobers - Trump is exposing them too, the 'expertariat' as Myron Ebell called them. Power attracts the wrong type of people and we don't know what to do about it.

Demetrius - yes he is a looter, but by accident or design I don't know.