Where did it all go wrong for Labour and Tony Blair?

As you can probably imagine, I suspected knew that Tony Blair was a wrong 'un from the start: as shadow Home Secretary he pandered to the most reactionary instincts of the Daily Mail partly because he's a reactionary, but mostly because he thought it would win him votes, which is much more cynical.

Then there's the war, about which we don't need to say much. But the salient point for today's discussion is his oft-repeated demand that we all 'trust' him, because he relied on God and his conscience - as though sincerity is the same as good judgement.

Why mention this now? Because we're presented with another example of this non-rationalist, character-based politics. Here's Ed Balls, in the Independent:

I had a couple of conversations with Tony Blair where he would say he was worried that [a measure] would hit people with middle incomes and I would say: ‘What do you think middle incomes are?’ and he would say: ‘£50-60,000.’ I said [that the] middle income for a family is actually £26-27,000, and for an individual it is £18,000, and Tony would say: ‘Oh, the statistics must be wrong.’

Of course we all know that Blair, like Cameron (who would also get this wrong), is of the 1% culturally as well as financially, but this is a very revealing response: rather than accept the facts, or inquire into them, he just decides that they're wrong. Having rarely if ever met anyone poor or working class, he just cannot believe that they exist, or views their problems as whinging, because they're rich. Smash Hits used to ask pop stars how much a pint of milk costs, to see how far from reality they'd strayed: Blair would fail miserably.

There's a long tradition of this: a Bush spokesman once mocked journalist Ron Suskind (great article, by the way) for living in a 'reality-based community':

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

The background to this is the theory of cognitive dissonance, described in 1957 by Leon Festinger as the strategies we use to cope with reality not fitting our beliefs. Infiltrating a millennial cult, Festinger observed their reaction to the end of the world not arriving on the predicted day. Rather than admit that the moment hadn't come because that would cause intolerable mental distress, the group found alternative explanations, such as the claim that their devotion had prevented the apocalypse, or that a minor error in calculation meant that the actual end of the world was actually just coming… repeatedly. (There's a wickedly funny novel satirising Festinger: Alison Lurie's Imaginary Friends).

This is what we get with Tony Blair. He has a world view, in which everybody's rich and shouldn't complain. When presented with the evidence, he dismisses that, rather than undergo the difficulty of cognitive dissonance. The result is an increasingly unequal and brutalised society.

The man needed a psychiatrist, not the validation of his party and the electorate.

A welcome in the hillsides?

Well done Ireland. Tony Blair turned up to flog copies of his mendacious and embarrassing book, and was pelted with eggs and shoes by the Dublin crowd.

I know people will object. How childish. Won't do any good. Blah, blah, blah. We're not going to get the chance to go through our points of disagreement with the ex-Prime Minister in a calm and rational way. We didn't get to do that when he was in office either, because he's fundamentally irrational - he answered to his conscience, which he seems to have called 'God'. There's no way to debate these people: rational argument always loses in the face of belief.

So sometimes, an egg fits the situation perfectly. It's smooth, greasy and starts to stink after a while. Just like… well, you get my point.

Ball's

What with being ill and busy over the last few days, I haven't posted anything from my Dinner-Dance in aid of the North Staffordshire Special Adventure Playground. It's North Staffordshire's premier Special Adventure Playground, in fact. And only.

The glittering showbiz event was held in the director's banqueting chamber of Stoke City FC, so you can imagine that I was rather keen to go. Pictures of bygone heroes festooned the place. I could almost hear the ghostly rattle of broken bones, stricken crossbars and crowd violence (very much a thing of the past).

Feeling rough, I didn't dance much, but did escort The Well of Lost Blogs, and shared a table with her and the other staff, delightful company all. Unfortunately, I lost out in the auction for a signed Stoke City ball, a French villa holiday and a bottle of House of Commons whisky signed by Tony Blair* (I planned to trace the signature onto a full confession of his war crimes).

The distinguished gentleman is Stanley Matthews, one of Stoke and England's greatest players. A few more pictures are here.

*In an effort to avoid the taxman and hide his enormous income, Blair has set up 12 companies to funnel his cash through. The full, incredibly boring, details, are here. So much for upholding the public good even once out of office etc. etc.

In my absence

In my absence, many things have appeared in my brain which would have occasioned a cyberrant.

Amongst them, of course, was Tony Blair's announcement that he'd have found some other excuse to invade Iraq if he'd definitively known that there weren't any WMDs (which he must have known anyway).

It's not, of course, a surprise that he'd have done this. There are two aspects of the interview which are classic Blair.

1. The 'I did what I thought was right according to my conscience' routine. It's evasive and unacceptable. I could punch my mum and claim that I was being true to myself. It's no defence. Ken Macdonald, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, rightly called it a 'narcissist's defence', and he's right - the only validation, for Blair, is Blair. That's a total rejection of objective standards, law and democracy.

2. There's an inquiry into the Iraq war on (a bit of a whitewash, but at least it's on). Did Blair say these things to the inquiry? No, he bloody didn't. He did what he did right through his premiership: sat on a sofa in a TV studio, answering questions from unqualified light-entertainment presenters. He never hid his contempt for Parliament, and he never went on the serious news shows, like Today, Newsnight or Channel 4 News. Instead, he oiled his way onto shows like Richard and Judy. This time it was Fern Britton, most famous for hosting This Morning, Ready Steady Cook, Soapstar Superstar, Magic Moments, and Mr. and Mrs., alongside a host of other hard-hitting political shows.

Headlines to gladden the heart

'Blair Hopes for EU Presidency Sinking Fast'.

Good. He'd be bad for Britain and bad for Europe. Asserting that a UK citizen would be automatically good for the UK is imperialistic and chauvinistic.

Meanwhile, if you think you're an elf, this is the place to go: Otherkin.net. No, really. Thanks to Steve.

L'Union Européene, c'est moi

George Monbiot has an intriguing line on Blair's government-supported plot to get himself appointed (no elections in the new, more-democratic EU) President of the European Union. George reckons that Blair's guilty of war crimes (unprovoked invasion of Iraq without the justification of self-defence) and won't be prosecuted in the UK, whereas several Eu countries do have laws on their books which would do the job - and he couldn't refuse to visit them if he were EU president.

I've got some sympathy for this, but I'm seriously concerned about a Blair presidency. I listened to a Radio 4 discussion on the matter yesterday, in which both the Tory and Labour guests argued solely about 'the British interest' and were obsessed by the 'patriotic' need to have a UK citizen as president.

This worries me. It suggests that the British are fundamentally incapable of understanding the point of the EU - that large collectives work together for mutual interests, rather than scoring points and engaging in oneupmanship of this petty, nationalistic type.

Which is the Blair problem. As far as I can see, the motorcades Miliband mentioned are his prime motivation. He isn't a democrat (he always seemed to view actual voters and Parliament as an embarrassing roadblock) and he certainly isn't a European. He couldn't manage to get Britain into the Schengen Agreement on open borders, he refused to promote the idea that Britain join the Euro, most shamefully he removed Britain from every form of worker and employment protection he could, and he became the US's messenger boy, openly antagonising our European allies. This man is an enemy of the European ideal.

Why on earth would other nations respect an EU president who, while he ran his own country, blocked European initiatives and openly expressed his contempt for many Europeans? An EU president who, in power, blocked EU decisions at home and abroad! Won't they - and European governments - view him as simply a stooge for US and corporate interests? Could you see him defending and advocating the fair taxation regimes of the Scandinavians, or the employment legislation of the French? I just can't - he'd instigate a race to the bottom, whether we're talking about banking, taxation, employment, military action or the environment.

The arguments for Blair are that he's a 'big beast' - familiar with world leaders and able to knock heads together. It's overplayed. The British always think they're more important on the world stage than they are, rather than embracing a future more like the moral authority of Norway, Denmark or Sweden, comparable countries. The Americans use the UK as cover for unilateral policies. Blair's personal style is arrogant and evasive and his slavish devotion to Bush's illegal wars has closed as many doors to him internationally as it's opened.

The resistance starts here. Let's leave him to his millions and his weirdo religious obsessions. If he wants to represent anyone else, he can stand for election.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha bye bye Blears

Maybe this makes me sound bitter, but Hazel Blears' resignation is one of the happiest days of my life - like all my graduations rolled into one - because I'm a socialist and a Labour Party member (I know, these things are mutually exclusive, but I exist in a state of cognitive dissonance). I hope that my constant acid attacks on her has helped foster in her the sense that the people don't really like her - but I doubt it.

True to form, she's resigned in a way designed to make herself look good and Brown look useless. He is, of course, but she's a deserting rat keen to inflict as much damage as possible. He should have sacked her a long time ago: it would have been good for the government of this country, good for the party and good for his reputation: he'd have looked decisive.

She said that she wants to

"help the Labour party to reconnect with the British people, to remind them that our values are their values, that their hopes and dreams are ours too".

But the Guardian is, thankfully, less impressed by her low cunning:

In a move that seemed deliberately hostile, Blears confirmed her departure publicly 90 minutes before prime minister's questions.

Obviously she's talking total bollocks. She represents nobody except careerist rightwing political obsessive class traitors, despite her incessant whinging that she's working class (because her brother drives a bus). Let's hope she's consigned to the dustbin of history for ever, and that New Labour goes with her.

As to the leadership, I maintain my record of opposing every Labour leader since Clement Atlee (and he drifted sharply to the right). I hated Blair when he was Home Office shadow minister and saw Gordon as his capitalist fixer - and a man who betrayed his Maxtonite roots. I see no reason to re-evaluate that position. I'd like John McDonnell to take the leadership, out of romantic socialism. If not, Alan Johnson would appeal to the electorate but not to me. Perhaps Rhodri Morgan (or in English) should be invited in: he's the leader of Wales's 'Classic Labour', which has made that country a socialist paradise, he's a heavyweight intellectual and a populist speaker and organiser. Michael Foot's still alive too.

I almost forgot: meanwhile, Labour HQ has dumped Dr Ian Gibson, for selling his flat to his daughter. Ridiculous: most of the cabinet have behaved corruptly, whereas he hasn't. Of course, it couldn't be because he's a sane, rational, thoughtful and occasionally rebellious independent thinker. He's particularly good on science. The country will certainly miss his contribution to public life.