Indeed, Mr. Blair has likened his successor to “a great clunking fist” of a politician who will lead Labor into battle against the polished Conservative leader, David Cameron.
From his body language, slumped on the benches of Parliament, Mr. Brown sometimes seems dour and troubled, at times conspiratorial. His speeches evoke the Protestant ethnic of hard work and decency bred by his Scottish upbringing.
Sir Andrew Turnbull, a former senior colleague at the Exchequer, Britain’s treasury department, once described Mr. Brown’s management style as Stalinist. Mr. Brown’s adversaries depict him as brusque and reclusive. To some, he resembles a dark prince who has waited a decade for his throne only to see his inheritance devalued by an unpopular war in Iraq, hints of economic troubles and a loss of trust in his party.
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"1997 was a moment for a new beginning. Expectations were high, too high."
Tony Blair announces his departure. So, now, who is this Gordon Brown character?
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Perhaps this might lead to a complete Brit withdrawal from Iraq and maybe too much to hope for, we'll be right behind them.
"To some, he resembles a dark prince who has waited a decade for his throne...."
Imagine Richard Perle without the sense of humor. ;)
Blair has been for some time - certainly since ascending to the leadership of the Labour [sic.] Party - what the Germans would recognize as a Christian Democrat; he would fit logically into the Blue Dog wing of the Democratic Party over here. He might even fit logically into what was once termed - before the term was devalued by liberal partisans - "the neoconservatives" (see The Neoconservative Reader (2004) (I. Stelzer, Ed.)). Unfortunately, such a position barely exists in Britain and Blair has not staked it out in a way that will survive his own departure. The party remains overwhelmingly the party of the unreconstructed left (and I mean the real left, nationalization of the commanding heights and all), and even Brown - a moderate by those standards - is considerably to Blair's left and even more authoritarian than is Blair (if such a thing is possible; see Andrew Rawnsley, Servants of the People (2002)).
Worse yet, the Conservative Party in the UK has become, not to put too fine a point on it, a joke. There used to be a joke about American politics in Britain, and it went as follows. America, it was said, has two political parties: the Republicans, who are very much like our conservative party, and the Democrats, who are very much like... our Conservative party. The premise was the supposed center-right homogeneity of American public life. I rather think that joke has now turned around. Britain today, I would say, has three political parties: and all three are very much like our Democratic Party. There is a center-left homogeneity to British politics that the Conservative party has galloped to occupy. Thatcher must be apalled, and I imagine Oakeshott raising a dispirited eyebrow from beyond the grave.
Lastly: alas, I suspect Hoosier Daddy's comment is exactly right to expect Britain to withdraw from Iraq very rapidly. It's sometimes said that Alberto Gonzales has a constituency of one, the President, and it seems to me that when I was in Britain in January, my presence doubled the number of supporters of the war in the country, since Iraq seemed to have a constituency of one, the Prime Minister. Moreover, unlike America, Britain can withdraw without any increase to its risk, and since the war appears to be massively unpopular there, I suspect that they will.
Protestant work ethnic? And here I thought the main problem with protestants was that they weren't ethnic enough - all that carping about WASPs (and what do carps have against a flying insect?) Though it is interesting to notice that evangelical protestants are the fastest growing type of Christians and that the evangelical strain of Anglicanism/Episcopalianism that is so popular in Africa and Asia is displacing historical Episcopalian structures in North America. The Pope is in Brazil to fight against Protestant ethnics stealing his congregations...
Ann,
I know you and your readers enjoy bashing "eco-hypocrites," so I think you'll like this article about David Cameron and his bicycle riding to work.
Among his thoughts about environmentalism is this:
[Cameron adds] that being green should not be seen as being all gloom and doom, or about making personal sacrifices.
Hey, environmentalism without personal sacrifice! Now that's something that will sell!
From his body language, slumped on the benches of Parliament, Mr. Brown sometimes seems dour and troubled, at times conspiratorial.
The dour Scotsman, huh? There's a stereotype for you. Och! Dinna fash ye'self, Jimmy!
I've always been impressed by Blair's ability to work with both Clinton and Bush.
"1997 was a moment for a new beginning. Expectations were high, too high."
I don't know what those expectations were, but I suspect they didn't involve his attempts to cripple the House of Lords, abolish the office of Lord Chancellor, and abolish the right to trial by jury for a huge number of offenses. Under his government, Britain has become a 'surveillance society' -- there are over four million government CCTV cameras watching the public. To add that dystopian je ne sais quoi, some of them have also been configured with speakers so that the operators can berate you through the camera. I am given to understand he's also worked to destroy the educational system, attacking the independence of the Universities and watering down academic standards for the state run schools and so on. Not least, once he had got the hereditary peers out of the House of Lords, he started in on packing it with his cronies (although in fairness, I think there was some sort of deal with Lord Cranbourne, now Lord Salisbury, about the balance of the House).
He's been a good ally to America, but he's been utterly horrible for his own people.
Balfegor said...
"I don't know what those expectations were, but I suspect they didn't involve his attempts to cripple the House of Lords, abolish the office of Lord Chancellor ... once he had got the hereditary peers out of the House of Lords, he started in on packing it with his cronies."
Actually, to the extent he has failed to fulfill expectations on that front, it has been by not going far enough. Labour swept into office with drastic constitutional reform on its agenda.
I have a deep-seated unease with talking about the reform of the House of Lords, because it pitches my more conservative instincts -- which ever warns against sudden drastic shifts in the face of the law of unforeseen consequences -- against my ready agreement that the House of Lords was then (and indeed is now) constituted is in profound need of change. What I am very clear about, however, is this: my objection to what Blair has done to the House of Lords isn't that he wanted to change it, but that he started changing it apparently without the faintest idea what the end result of that change should be. I find that truly objectionable. Not only is he making drastic changes, he's making them rashly without appropriate consideration. That really does bring out the conservative in me; like the Democrats who would pull us out of Iraq, Blair jumped in to constitutional reform without asking "what then?"
A prerequisite of reform is a plan. You don't just blunder into the thicket of tradition and start hacking away with a machete in the vague hope that you'll accidentally carve it into a sculpture of a swan.
Simon wrote:
like the Democrats who would pull us out of Iraq, Blair jumped in to constitutional reform without asking "what then?"
Your statement would make far more sense if you wrote it like this:
like Bush who pushed us into an invasion and occupation of Iraq, Blair jumped in to constitutional reform without asking "what then?"
"like Bush who dickered around with the UN for 6 months before liberating Iraq"
[Rush to War meme. See also: Bush Lied, No Blood for Oil, Saddam Not a Threat, Sanctions Working, No Links to Al Queda, Iraq Had No WMD Program, etc]
I'd don't like the "Rush to War" accusation. I prefer "Lack of an Intelligent Plan."
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