Posted on 03/26/2006 1:06:23 PM PST by RWR8189
TWILIGHT IS HASTENING FOR TONY Blair. Though British prime ministers face no term limits, few can withstand the swelling tide of public boredom and familiarity's contempt. Margaret Thatcher set a peacetime record of 11 years in office before she succumbed; Blair, elected in 1997, will have clocked up nine in May. The gathering consensus now asserts that he will not, in spite of his own ambition and energy, reach the full decade in office he had hoped for.
Last week the constitutional choreography in London seemed to hint strongly at an imminent succession. Blair's designated successor, Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered his tenth budget speech to the House of Commons. The budget is usually a boastful recitation of economic statistics and tweaks to the tax code; the chancellor generally seizes the opportunity to tout the success of the U.K. economy and add a penny or two to the cost of a bottle of whisky.
But this time Brown presented a manifesto for the impending change in leadership. The financial details clearly bore him: Instead he waxed enthusiastic about Britain's global role and the kind of changes in the domestic political framework that are inevitable. And in the pure political theater that only the House of Commons can stage, Brown engaged in an intriguing preview of the struggle between him and David Cameron, the new Conservative party leader, that will define British politics in the run-up to the next election in 2009. Blair was reduced to the status of an amused and slightly detached onlooker.
The prime minister (for he is still that, for now) was hurt by his own campaign promise to stand down before the next election. Though he figured at the time that such a declaration might give him a full U.S.-style final term in office, he did not account for the swift and brutal motion of British politics. Blair was already weakened by the continuing and deepening unpopularity of the Iraq war. A series of domestic legislative fights in the last few months over the introduction of identity cards, toughened antiterrorist laws, and education reforms further undermined him, at least in the unforgiving eyes of his own Labour party.
But earlier this month he seemed to add the insult of venality to the injury of socialist apostasy. The prime minister, the public learned, was recommending several wealthy business leaders who had given generously to the Labour party for elevation to the House of Lords. This news underlined the popular view that this is a government grown remote and contemptuous of the rules of decent governance.
Republicans may fret about an approval rating for President Bush of 36 percent. But that looks positively Reaganesque compared with Blair's plight: He is now despised by two-thirds of Labour voters, three quarters of Conservatives, and a clear majority of independents.
In fact the Bush administration will have played a substantial part in Blair's demise. The Iraq war, of course, has undermined the prime minister; but the Bush administration seems oddly committed to making life even more difficult for him. Britain is in a state of angry ferment about the way its defense contracts have been handled by the Americans. A decision by the Pentagon to cut a British company out of the procurement contracts for the new Joint Strike Fighter has outraged public opinion and led even this most Atlanticist of governments to think seriously about striking out in a new direction with European partners, rather than be more closely integrated with U.S. defense systems. Quite how a beleaguered administration can still find room to alienate one of its few allies in the world is perhaps only for Donald Rumsfeld to explain. But the damage done to Blair's claim that his support for the United States has produced tangible benefits for the United Kingdom is incalculable.
Many American conservatives are tempted to regard the imminent end of Blair as a blessing. They note his statist tendencies when it comes to domestic policies--increased taxes and government spending, bans on fox hunting and other infringements of civil liberties--and wonder what side in the war of ideas he is on. And yet, just when you prepare yourself to welcome the departure of this oddly cynical and infuriatingly political man, he reminds us of just how much he will be missed when he is gone.
Last week, he gave the first of a series of three detailed speeches in defense of the Iraq war and the broader struggle against Islamist extremism. (You can read the first at www.number10.gov.uk; the second will be delivered in Australia this week and the third in Washington next week.) Even a British media that barely stops now to consider the case for the Iraq invasion could not ignore the power of its message. Blair spelled out, without apology, what is truly at stake in Iraq:
People look back on the three years since the Iraq conflict; they point to the precarious nature of Iraq today and to those who have died--mainly in terrorist acts--and they say: How can it have been worth it? But there is a different question to ask: Why is it so important to the forces of reaction and violence to halt Iraq in its democratic tracks and tip it into sectarian war? Why do foreign terrorists from al Qaeda and its associates go across the border to kill and maim? Why does Syria not take stronger action to prevent them? Why does Iran meddle so furiously in the stability of Iraq?
And in explaining the bigger threat from Islamism, he demonstrated how his departure will leave a large gap where the war's most effective advocate has been for the last few years:
Fundamentally, for this ideology, we are the enemy. . . . "We" is not the West. "We" are as much Muslim as Christian or Jew or Hindu. "We" are those who believe in religious tolerance, openness to others, to democracy, liberty, and human rights administered by secular courts. This is not a clash between civilizations. It is a clash about civilization.
In a tumultuous nine years, Blair may have gotten many small things wrong. But, as he demonstrates in these apparently valedictory remarks, when it mattered, he, perhaps better than anyone in the entire world, got the one big thing right.
Gerard Baker is U.S. editor of the London Times and a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard.
Wow! Mega thanks for this great post.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Bloody politics in the Queendom is downright brutal. See ya later Tony. Thanks for your help, old chap.
He is a wanker, a handmaiden to the wackjobs that blew up the tube.
?
I can't wait for all of New Labour to end up in history's trashcan but it's probably too late for that now, too much damage has been done and any replacement gov will find it nearly impossible to unravel.
His recent statements in Australia have some saying he may in fact hang on until the next election.
I hope your not a Norman sympathizer?
No, Saxon !
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