Good bye and good riddance Tony Blair

By GERRY WARNER
Cranbrook Daily Townsman
May 25, 2007
Please mark June 27 on your calendar as a date to celebrate. Have a stiff drink, go out to your favourite restaurant or just kick back and relax because the world will be a better place after June 27 because that's the date Tony Blair finally resigns.
With Blair down, there's only one major world leader left that unequivocally supports the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the clock is ticking for George Bush too and in another year he will join Blair in the trash bin of history -- two politicians who were great successes on their home turf, but failed miserably on the world stage. And as violence and death mount daily in Baghdad, the crazed fanatics behind the carnage probably have little realization that their biggest victims are Blair and Bush, one leaving politics in less than two months and the other the biggest lame duck to occupy the White House this century, perhaps any other.
But did it have to be this way with Blair?
Clearly a far more intelligent and charismatic leader than Bush, when Blair burst on the scene in the mid-1990's with his slogan "New Labour" and his pro-market policies that revitalized a party that had been asleep for a generation, he seemed like the proverbial "man of the hour." Soon people were talking about "cool Britannia" and the British economy, which had been lagging behind European countries like France and Germany forged ahead and Blair was on his way to becoming the most successful Labour leader in history, winning three consecutive majorities. He handled himself splendidly during the death of the world's biggest celebrity at the time -- Princess Diana -- dubbing her the "People's Princess" and in doing so brought the Queen herself and the Royal Family kicking and screaming into the 21st Century (some might say the 20th) as they finally realized the hold Diana had on the British people and people around the world. (see Helen Murrin in "The Queen"). Along the way, he played a key role in ending the Irish "troubles," gave Scotland its own Parliament and became a major player on the world stage. Considering all this, and this is only a small part of it, only one question remains to be asked -- how could it all go so wrong?
For the answer, of course, you simply have to turn to the date Sept. 11, 2001. As the hijacked planes crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, Tony Blair was about to crash himself, plunging over a political abyss of his own making. In short, Blair's response to the outrageous attacks was to "out-Bush, Bush." A PBS documentary Wednesday showed Blair making a special address to the British people on the 9/11 atrocity hours before Bush spoke to the American people. Right from the get-go, Blair was Bush's biggest cheerleader for the war and he never let up, not even now, in the face of almost universal disdain for the war and the lies, deceit and treachery that preceded it. In doing this, Blair lost the soul of his own party, the overwhelming majority of which opposed the war from the start. And it's ended with one of the most bizarre episodes ever seen in the history of British politics, or politics anywhere for that matter, namely a sitting Prime Minister, the most successful leader of his party in history, being forced out, not by the opposition, not by electoral defeat, but by his own party who could no longer stomach his almost cheerful support for a war that has cost thousands of lives including hundreds of British.
Stories like this only happen in real life. You can't make them up. Which leaves the Big Question still hanging in the air -- how could someone as smart and telegenic as Tony Blair do it? At this point, we have to look at another side of Tony Blair, a side always kept carefully hidden from the general public. Blair is a man of faith, not the kind of faith like George Bush worn on the sleeve, but a deep and profound faith nevertheless. You'd never know it watching Blair in action. He's far too smart to leave an opponent an opening like that. But the faith is absolutely there, and if you listen hard enough, you can discern it from Blair's regular use of the word "moral" at key times in his political career. Moral, in Blair-speak, is code for my belief, my faith, my God. Blair became deeply religious while a student at Oxford and in an interview with ITV March 4, 2006 he said he prayed before deciding to go to war against Iraq."I think if you have faith about these things, you realize that judgment is made by other people . . . and if you believe in God, it's made by God as well."
All I can say about the foregoing is that if I was facing my Maker, I wouldn't want Tony Blair's blood on my hands.

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