Boiling over

… and not just because it's unseasonably warm.

Today is Tony Blair's turn to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. Perspicacious as Mr Leveson and Mr Jay are, I hold out no hope at all of honest or clear answers from the former Prime Minister. Tony Blair is an enigma, one of the most unpleasant and dangerous public figures of recent years.

I have no doubt that if he'd seen an opportunity in the Liberal or Conservative parties in the early 80s, he'd have joined them. Ideologically, he is the ultimate zipless politician, to adapt Erica Jong's phrase. His ideology stretches as far as allowing the rich and powerful - in business and in politics (and since he left office, himself) - untrammelled freedom. Never has it been truly said of anyone that Blair never met a rich man he didn't like. As last week's revelation that he believed middle incomes to be £50-60k per year and preferred his intuition to facts showed, he is not any kind of democrat.

His politics is entirely personal: he appealed to the public to trust his intuition; to trust him because he was 'a pretty straight kind of guy' and to replace social justice with verbless aspirations: 'equality of opportunity', 'education, education, education', 'your NHS safe in our hands': slogans which assumed that every citizen was a pushy confident bourgeois, and which opened up the public sector we voted for to the depredations of free market capital.

Blair's appeal was a kind of Teflon postmodernity: being a 'nice guy' replaced gritty political hard work; shiny corporations were automatically better than tired public services; financial speculation was better than hard work; dissenters would be punished with ASBOs and benefit cuts (at home) and bombed into submission (abroad). A general disposition towards social progressivism (such as being 'cool' with homosexuality, something I of course favour) replaced a serious social determination to rebuild Britain's social structures in favour of equality - hence the massively widened social and economic gap between the rich and poor, and the indifference towards life's losers.

Nick Cohen, a formerly leftwing war-hawk, famously supported Blair's wars on the basis that democracy is a universal right which can and should be imposed by force of arms. His Observer column this week, 'Blair's Moral Decline and Fall Is Now Complete', Cohen finally admits that Blair's massively profitable (and 'tax-efficient', as they say) work on behalf of Kazakhstan's foul dictatorship is the end of Blair's moral superiority.

Nick: what kept you? I always distrusted Blair's hard-right moralism, which seemed calculated to please The Sun (and let's not even go into Blair's craven regard for Murdoch). More specifically, I and anyone with a brain saw the Iraq war not as a democratic necessity to liberate that country's oppressed citizens, but as the reflex action of a man who knows which way the wind blows. Cohen quotes Blair to demonstrate why the Prime Minister had his support:

Blair: "There is global struggle in which we need a policy based on democracy, on freedom and on justice…" 

Blair replied in admirably plain language. His commitment to democracy and human rights was absolute. Moreover, it was universal: if free elections are good enough for Britain, they are good enough for Iran and no weasel words about theocrats having their "own" version of democracy can be allowed to pass uncontested.

By necessity, Blair was also an internationalist, because, as he said in his Chicago speech of 1999, which was by some measure his finest: "We are all internationalists now, whether we like it or not… we cannot turn our backs on conflicts and the violation of human rights within other countries if we want still to be secure." 

Fine words. But a highly-paid political columnist really should have a little more nous. Blair's commitment to 'democracy and human rights' is not and never was 'absolute'. Next to Iraq is Saudi Arabia. This is the country which forbids women to appear in public without a male relative. Women can't drive or vote. Some men have recently been given the chance to vote for a pointless assembly. Religious belief is harshly policed. There are no rights pertaining to democracy: no political campaigns, no freedom of speech, no freedom of assembly, no union rights. Torture is the state's major tool to maintain the status quo.

By any standards, Saudi Arabia was worse than Iraq and approached the condition of North Korea. I was personally inspired by Tony Blair's commitment to universal democracy and human rights. So I wrote to my New Labour MP, Rob Marris, asking him to let me know when the invasion of Saudi Arabia was scheduled, explaining my concerns about the country and my hopes for a democratic future. His reply consisted of two lines, the salient words being 'totally different', though he failed to explain why.

I know why. Saudi Arabia has a lot of oil. We depend on it. In return, they buy a lot of British weapons (mainly for show, but partly to use against their citizens), and they don't get too upset about western support for Israel, despite their obsessive anti-Semitism. Democracy is for our enemies - many of whom were our friends when their human rights abuses were less important than their preference for NATO bribes over Soviet Union ones: Saddam Hussein is a case in point.

This is Blair's 'absolute' commitment to democracy: it disappears when money and geo-politics appear, both in office and out. None of this should be a surprise. Nobody's shocked when a Tory enunciates the brutality of realpolitik. The point about Blair is that he moved the political debate away from substance towards appearance: his carefully-constructed persona was that of the modern, cool guy at ease with celebrity culture and lifestyle politics, but his few political instincts were as hard-right as any Tory. Global hegemony and casino capitalism formed the bedrock of his beliefs - anything else was negotiable. The origins and purpose of his party were embarrassing relics, quickly discarded. As he repeatedly demonstrated, 'newness' was the only signifier which mattered to him - he would constantly attack 'the forces of conservatism', by which he meant the civil service, his own party members and those they represented - not on any serious structural level, but because they were in the way of his autocratic sense that he should be able to ordain a new order without discussion, consultation or objection. Democracy at home was, to him, a drag on wealth creation and political leadership: his massive self-belief led him to assume that his every instinct (as in the average wage anecdote) was correct and any alternative view was simply obstructive for the sake of it. This is why - as his testimony at Leveson admirably demonstrates - his linguistic discourse consists of 'look' and 'y'know': he cannot and never could take scrutiny: such quirks are signs of his frustration at being questioned on anything.

Cosying up to the Murdochs of this world wasn't a burden: it was a pleasure for him, because the only people who mattered were life's winners, however they got there.

Another forest falls for me

A lunchtime of pleasure and pain: pleasure at the pile of books in the post, pain at the voice of Tony Blair on the radio, lauding democracy while simultaneously avoiding saying anything unpleasant about the various billionaire dictators he's friends with. His cant, his humbug and his intellectual inadequacy were at the heart of his failure as PM. It's time he, Mandelson, Campbell, Brown, Prescott, Blears, Clarke and all the discredited apparatchiks took a vow of silence while a search for socialism with a soul takes place.

Anyway, no wonder I seek escape in literature. Although being a spec. fic. fan, most of it deals with the world Blair and co. have bequeathed us. Bacigalupi's post-oil Ship Breaker, Loomis's translation of Thomas of Britain's The Romance of Tristram and Ysolt in a lovely 1960s cover, Robert O'Brien's Z for Zachariah (teen post-apocalypse classic with a seriously nasty twist), and Chris Adrian's The Great Night (a dark retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream set in a San Francisco park with real fairies). And finally, the DVD of Inside Job - a shocking (and beautifully-made) documentary about the financial crash which turned into a bank robber in which the banks became the robbers.

Most interesting, Spacetime Inn (1932) by the obscure and interesting Lionel Britton, working-class modernist. I can't afford the £170 or so to get a copy of his novel, Hunger and Love (1931), unfortunately, but this play is is fascinating. Check out the dramatis personae:

BILL, a Cockney Proletarian

JIM, his friend

THE HOST of Spacetime Inn

SHAKESPEARE

BERNARD SHAW

Dr JOHNSON

KARL MARX

NAPOLEON

QUEEN VICTORIA

QUEEN OF SHEBA

EVE

SERVING MAN

HAND-MAIDEN

The action takes place in the interior of an old-world inn.

The time is spacetime.

I haven't read it yet, but it looks fascinating.

Here we are, all the lads

Obviously political leaders have to meet people they don't like or even despise, but one of the shared characteristics of Europe's current crop of political leaders is that they seem to admire and like some of the most vicious dictators around. Certainly Blair never met a dictator or rich man he didn't like. It's as those these rather strange men felt embarrassed and trapped by the democratic constitutions of Europe, and had a sneaking regard for the absolute power wielded by Gadaffi and others.

Let's play Gadaffi Top Trumps:

Berlusconi

Sarkozy

Blair

Americans Against Democracy

Salon.com has posted a very useful guide to Dictator Mubarak's influential American friends.

For most of them it comes down to a simple equation:

Democracy v. American and Israeli interests (as though they're the same thing).

And it's an easy call: Egyptians' human rights are far less important than maintaining the status quo. Occasionally - but not always - hidden is the claim that Egyptians and/or Muslims in general are incapable of behaving moderately, democratically or sensibly: simple racism.

However: these loud outriders aren't the only ones. While most Americans are, I suspect, largely in favour of the freedom movement (echoes of 1776 and all that) the US government's response has been very slow and cautious: the State Department is well-versed in privileging superpower hegemony over idealism.

I'd add another to this list of oligarchic tyranny cheerleaders: Tony Blair, who threw his largely discredited weight behind Mubarak.

Oh, and Silvio Berlusconi, who called him 'the wisest of men'. You can tell the quality of a man by the company he keeps - and that works both ways.

It's all over for Mubarak

OK, he says he's carrying on for a few more months to give him time to loot the country and instal his torturing cronies, but there's been a decisive intervention:

Tony Blair described him as "immensely courageous and a force for good"

Well, it takes one autocratic war criminal and torture-enable to know one. Poor old Saddam: the only dictator Blair ever disliked. What are the odds, eh?

A Bad Day on Mount Olympus

What an amazing Friday. Shadow Chancellor resigns yesterday and the personal stuff starts coming out. Tony Blair being grilled on his little evasions and lies to the Iraq Inquiry, and now Andy Coulson, David Cameron's criminal press advisor resigns - he says it's because he's become the story, but I suspect it's really because his fingerprints are all over the News of the World's illegal phone-hacking. You don't, as an editor, receive scoops week after week without wondering if there's any connection between them and the large amounts of money you're paying an expert in phone-hacking. To put it mildly.

The only problem with all this is that there won't be proper coverage of all of them, especially Blair, whose Messianic Manichaeanism deserves the full glare of public contempt. No doubt the principals of all these stories are very relieved. Nobody looks very good this morning.

PS. I nicked the title of this post from the excellent Marilyn Todd short story. Highly recommended.

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

I missed this hypnotic piece of genius the first time round.

Blair to get his just desserts

Sorry to get your hopes up. No, he's not going to be dragged in chains to the International Court. But he is nominated for this year's Bad Sex Awards, for his sterling work in his recent book - the first non-fiction (ho ho) book to be so recognised.

A taste:

 "That night she cradled me in her arms and soothed me; told me what I needed to be told; strengthened me. On that night of 12 May 1994, I needed that love Cherie gave me, selfishly. I devoured it to give me strength. I was an animal following my instinct," 

The awards are given by the Literary Review, a rather stuffy periodical, with the best possible intention. You've got to be a brilliant writer to get away with sex scenes, and if you aren't, you shouldn't even try. By those standards, Blair should have a hammer taken to his fingers toute de suite.

Queue here to effect a citizen's arrest

Gloriously, this is the security required for a single author to sign some books.

That author is, of course, Tony Blair, who received a rude response in Dublin a few days ago. And those citizens weren't even among his victims/citizens!

Wonderfully, he's had to call off his London signing. The plan was to take away purchasers' belongings, refuse dedications and conversations, and generally treat people as serfs for paying him money to read his lying, self-obsessed words. Now he's claiming that:

 "I very much enjoyed meeting my readers in Dublin and was looking forward to doing the same in London. However, I have decided not to go ahead with the signing as I don't want the public to be inconvenienced by the inevitable hassle caused by protesters. I know the Metropolitan police would, as ever, have done a superb job in managing any disruption but I do not wish to impose an extra strain on police resources, simply for a book signing."

Blair said he was also worried that the far right British National party might attempt to cause trouble.

Which I think we can all agree is a massive steaming pile of lie-pooh. He's actually scared of normal people telling him to his face what they think of him. If he'd been a little more open to the opinions of people around him in the first place, rather than the voices in his head (which he seems to have ascribed to God), he wouldn't be so hated.

He was also put off by the various satirical plans circulating on the web, such as the one to use invisible ink to inscribe a confession on the front page for him to unwittingly sign. A jolly good wheeze, I thought.

This is another one:

Waterstone's are also having to cope with a number of anti-Blair protesters moving his memoirs to the crime area of their stores, after thousands joined a group entitled "Subversively move Tony Blair's memoirs to the crime section in bookshops".

Coming from a computer near you. Maybe

A quiet moment so I've sneaked into the computer room to say hello. It's years since I used a Windows machine and I'm finding it really difficult. Some creative hacking later might get me online with my Mac so I can post some photographs of Newcastle I took at sunset the other day. Things are really starting to get busy here, and there's a real buzz.

I'd let you in on it, but the authorities here have blocked all the webpages the athletes might actually use: Twitter, Facebook, Hotmail, GMail,Youtube etc - so they can't follow the UK School Games's own Twitter page, or that of British Fencing. You can though!

It's probably a good thing I won't be online much, as I've read a couple of interviews with Tony Blair to mark the publication of his memoirs. They made me very angry. He's clearly far more rightwing than even I - a longtime member of the Leftwing Conspiracy - ever imagined. He's also frighteningly unintelligent, and even more frighteningly convinced of his own infallibility. If you want to make your toes curl, read the extracts in today's Guardian - terrible Mills and Boon sex scenes. Very unpleasant indeed.

Have a good week.

Cultural Relativism in Action

And somewhere, people are presumably venerating icons of George Bush. This poster is in Kosova.

Steve Bell: genius

(Nicked from the NSPCC's adverts)

Blair: the digested digest

To save you the effort, here's basically what Blair has had to say so far.
1. F**k the lawyers.
2. F**k the liberals, invasion's cool.
3. It doesn't matter if evidence is fake and/or hyped up by his advisers, what's important is whether he personally believes it.
3. Let's f**k Iran!
4. Mmmmmm, Bush.

Mmm, great plan. He really is a third-rate mind (at top rate fees - £2000 per minute at one recent function - more than Ronaldo).

The animals looked from the pigs to the men…

How's this as a marker of how the party of the people has become merely part of the international élite, leaving behind all conscience?

Mandelson parties with Gadaffi's son

Peter Mandelson, Gadaffi's son and Cherie Blair all went on a shooting trip hosted by Lord Rothschild. Mandy and Blair didn't heft any guns themselves, just consorted with this aristo riff-raff. Rothschild's a Tory bastard, Gadaffi's a mad dictator (and their children never turn out to be lovely people), Mandelson's 'intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich' and Blair is a social-climber who never turned down a freebie.

Why I'm still angry after so many years of this government, I don't know. They jettisoned socialism 20 years ago (a conservative estimate), but it's the shamelessness of this particular junket that gets me. It's exactly like the party held by the pigs and men at the end of Animal Farm. The poor have no protection from the dictators and capitalists if the people's party simply wants to join in the feast.

By Toutatis, I'm actually steamingly furious about this. Really, really angry. It's just so symbolic.

A good way to spend money

I've had this conversation a few times this week: what would you do with the £45,000,000 lottery win scooped by a couple in Wales and by a syndicate of workers?

One thing I'd do is pick my least favourite people in the world and hire a team of people to follow them everywhere they go. You could have a bunch of people shouting 'sanctimonious war criminal' at Tony Blair or 'read a book' at George Bush 24 hours per day, or perhaps hound the director-general of the BBC with quotations from Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Bargain Hunt or Cash in the Attic or most Radio 4 'comedy' until he made a personal apology to every licence payer.

Then it struck me: we don't need lottery wins. We just need a lot of people to donate a small amount of money to cover flights, loudhailers and bail money, and get volunteers. We could, and I'm sorry to use such terribly trendy language, 'crowdsource' the cash. Who's with me? I said, WHO'S WITH ME?

Everybody's a comedian

My old friend Adam seems simultaneously to have discovered political satire and Photoshop. I don't necessarily endorse his views - I'm a bit more left wing, though no fan of Brown. He's right about Blair, and Stalin did remove friends from photographs as he had them executed. Adam: do you think that Cameron is any less evil?

President Blair, I presume?!!!?

'Blair in frame to become first EU President' screams the Guardian headline: apparently the Minister for Europe has given him the UK government's support.

How do we all feel about this? Why would Europe want him? He was utterly weak on the matter of Britain joining monetary union. He negotiated opt-outs for Britain on worker protection - then boasted about it. He made Britain's former slavish devotion to US foreign policy look amateur, pretty much taking up residence on his knees in front of Bush's crotch. There's no way he can convince as Europe's public face, defender, cheerleader. His religious mania seems all-powering, he seemed reluctant to engage with genuine democracy - preferring goverment by cabal and quiet word - and he has blood on his hands in pursuit of wars most of the other European countries opposed. He shares none of Europe's commitments to moderating free-market capitalism - he's a messenger boy for the least progressive forces in world politics and economics, and he's not even very bright.

I can see why a youngish man with millions of pounds and a Messiah complex might want the job: what I can't see is why anyone else would want to enable this ambition. I know he's restrained his minions from sacking Gordon Brown, but nobody else owes him anything. I wish he'd just retire to one of his many mansions and shut up.

You literally couldn't make it up (unless you were very cynical indeed)

I've always thought of Blair as a grasping, hypocritical, lying, ideology-free, sanctimonious turd of a human being, so it's no surprise to learn that he's a thief too. It's the small things which reveal a man's character. What other word can describe a millionaire who claims £7000 from the taxpayer to do up one of his houses two days before resigning as an MP and departing public life?

Likewise, how do we trust Gideon George Osborne. Not only is his idea of fun watching his own speeches on DVD: he charges us for them. Even more revealingly, the subject of his performance is Value for Taxpayers' Money. Laugh? I almost wept.

Toodle-pip, old beans

Right, that's it. I'm off to do some more ironing because that's the kind of glamorous life I lead when not teaching. Tomorrow I'm off to Oxford to look intellectual, though I've drawn the line at goatee, teddy bear, bowtie and tweeds. I like tweed though.

Iran is still in ferment. I can't help thinking that overt support from other governments for Moussavi is a terrible idea. If Ahmedinejad retains power, he'll be angry as well as nuked-up. If Moussavi wins, he'll have to prove he's not pro-American if he's to have any chance of governing successfully (this is the Kennedy/Clinton/Blair/Brown strategy: be more rightwing than rightwing parties so that they can't accuse you of being weak on communism/defence/paedos or whatever.

See you on Friday.

New Labour's moral void

I always disliked and distrusted Tony Blair and all the New Labour gang. Mark Steel records a conversation which encapsulates everything that was (and is) wrong about them, in his book What's Going On?. It's from Robin Cook's The Point of Departure, which I haven't read.

Roy Hattersley: 'Why are you sending your son to a selective school? After all, with all the advantages of being the son of a prime minister he'd do well wherever he went'.

Blair (paraphrased): I don't want my children to end up like the kids of Harold Wilson'.

Hattersley (paraphrased): 'One of Wilson's sons is a headmaster and the other is an Open University professor'.

Blair: 'Well, I would hope my sons do better than THAT'.

So there you have it. Not a thought, apparently for his daughter, but most of all, total contempt for the concept of public service, fulfilling endeavour in education or any occupation which doesn't involve massive amounts of money and selfish ambition. Wealth and status, as Steel points out, are the only acceptable ambitions for New Labour and their friends - which makes them indistinguishable from the Tories.