``i did what i thought was right''
well, well. as i sat down with a cup of tea. rubbing my hands in glee in anticipation of blair's resignation speech...
no one was more taken aback than I, when instead, i burst into tears.
i never liked blair, his politics or his personality and doubted his sincerity but goddamit. he left with a bang. that was a cracker of a speech.
when i look at the desolation that is italy's political landscape i have to tip my hat to a man who was for better or for worst, was a leader, who stuck to his guns and took responsibility for his failings, putting his balls on the chopping board. at times like this i'm proud to call myself british.
yes, he did what he thought was right.
8 comments:
Blimey. I haven't seen the speech but from your description he was doing what he does best - emoting to order. The man is a genius at capturing exactly the right emotional mood for any occasion.
I've seen him speak in the flesh at a number of different occasions, to very different audiences. Each time he was able, in a Clintonesque way, to say exactly what was right to a potentially hostile interest group. Brilliant.
As to whether or not that makes him a great leader - I have my doubts. He has done some good things: there has been a modest redistribution of wealth, although nothing like enough to reverse the massive accretion of wealth that the richest are accumulating. Some social policies (notably gay equality) are much more equitable - though there was a long fight to get even that.
But he has presided over a decade when social mobility has actually declined - yes, it is now harder to break out of your class than it was under John Major. He has pissed away gazillions on public services without proper reform (have a look at the railways, or the NHS, or even Defence). He has left the House of Lords incompletely reformed (why the Hell do we STILL have hereditary legislators?!). He has failed to deal with the rest of the constitutional issues (West Lothian Question, creation of a proper Supreme Court). He has done almost nothing to retore local government. He has failed dismally to do what he promised with the EU - to "put Britain at the heart of Europe". He has presided over a corrupt regime (stopped the prosecution of BAE over the bribes scandal, forced Tanzania to use aid money to buy totally inappropriate kit from ... BAE, Bernie Ecclestone & Formula One exemptions, Cash for Peerages... this list is way too long to be complete, but you get the idea).
His style has shifted from consensus to autocrat (you can hear how his vocal ticks have changed to reflect this. In the early years his speech was peppered with "you know", to bring you along; now his speech is full of "look", a word that encourages no opposition and makes it clear you're a numpty who doesn't understand his greatness).
There have been some good (and brave) foreign policies - Kosovo, Sierra Leone. But they are totally overshadowed by the disaster of Iraq.
What pisses me off most is the wasted opportunity. The great things he did in his early days were mostly the policies of his predecessor. His fantastic speech to his new cadre of Labour MPs when he was first elected PM - "We are the servants now" - was a brilliant moment that promised a new dawn, but how hollow that sounds now. Him, a servant?
Blimey: look how easy it is to make me rant!
And I can't believe I didn't even mention the erosion of civil liberties, the encroachment of the state into every area of our lives ("sleepwalking into the surveillance society", as the Information Commissioner put it), nuclear power, nuclear weapons...
AND his pathetic response to climate change ("you can't ask people to give up long-distance holidays"...).
AND the fact that he thinks it's ok to go on holiday with Silvio Berlusconi.
AND the fact that his administration let Pinochet get away.
Damnit, I'm going to be thinking of annoying things all day now!
i second all the above. i don't know WHAT the hell happened. i suddenly switched from a sneer to a tear. pretty much in an instant. something about the catholic sense of culpability. that somehow he owned up to it and took it like a man. and on a broader scale am full of admiration for a nation whose systems of checks and balances are in place. so even blair, who thought himself some kind of demi-god was forced out. just as thatcher was. for fuking up. for stepping out line. for believing their own infallability. in the end the nation went to war. didn't want it and the man responsible paid for it.
in italy supposedly we had the biggest anti-war protests. in practice it was just a bunch of kids bunking off school and hanging at the bar and having a picnic. in the end, iraq was the country's biggest non-issue. flagged as one. supposedly campaigned upon. but irrelevant.
dammit this may sound perverse but the brits have never taken war lightly. and that in itself. whether you're in or out, pro or against,is something. and always preferable to meaningless pacifist babble not backed up by anything but emptry rhetoric.
anyone want a cup of cha?
Le Duc. You summed up with amazing precision all my anger and frustration. One quote for all:
"I have been very lucky and very blessed. This country is a blessed nation. The British are special, the world knows it, in our innermost thoughts, we know it. This is the greatest nation on Earth. It has been an honour to serve it."
Bloody hell. Not even Sarko had the arrogance to say France was the greatest nation on Earth. He limited himsellf to "One of the greatest...".
My rant could go on for a long, long time, but we're all tired and deserve a rest...
england prevails!!!!
Albeo, it was that passage which stuck in my throat more than any other: the outrageousness of it.
I was appalled - at him for saying it, and at those stupid, cow-like people gazing up at him adoringly as they broke into loud applause at this nationalistic rubbish.
The only thing that made me more annoyed was the smirk of triumph that occasionally briefly played on his lips after he had got away with saying something particularly specious.
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