Labour Candidates distance themselves from Blair
Observer - Candidates disown Labour in local polls: Rebel Labour candidates, including the brother-in-law of a senior cabinet minister, are publicly distancing themselves from their own government in a frantic bid to salvage votes in next month's crucial local elections. In some areas the party has also resorted to 'stealth' leaflets that do not appear to come from the party - including a letter to voters in north London purporting to come from a man living near by, urging them to vote for his 'old friend', the Labour candidate, despite reservations over the war on Iraq. Electoral register searches reveal nobody of that name listed at his supposed address.
No! Really?
OK, so I'm not all that shocked:
Bloggerheads - Popular support costs money
Bloggerheads - Tessa Jowell can do no wrong III
Further blogagge:
BlairWatch - "Don't punish us for the mistakes of the Prime Minister" say activists - Then deal with him!: When are the Labour Party going to get it? This far down the line it is not possible to separate the leadership from the government and the party. If you stand under the Labour banner, then you are part of it. You are responsible for it. You pay subs to support it, you knock doors to argue for it... Candidates can easily distance themselves from Blair by standing as independents, but that requires having the courage of their convictions or the intellectual honesty to simply resign, as 50% of the party has done since 1997.
BSSC - Candidates disown Labour in local polls: One slight quibble. I think they mean "Candidates disown Blair and his minions in local polls". In reality, there's only one way for the Labour Party to successfully disown Blair. It really wouldn't be hard.
Agreed, agreed and agreed.... candidates will do themselves no favours by adopting dishonest tactics to distance themselves from a dishonest regime.
And rather than denying responsibility, they should take responsibility. Sensible people vote for doers and leaders, not bystanders or hapless followers.
No! Really?
OK, so I'm not all that shocked:
Bloggerheads - Popular support costs money
Bloggerheads - Tessa Jowell can do no wrong III
Further blogagge:
BlairWatch - "Don't punish us for the mistakes of the Prime Minister" say activists - Then deal with him!: When are the Labour Party going to get it? This far down the line it is not possible to separate the leadership from the government and the party. If you stand under the Labour banner, then you are part of it. You are responsible for it. You pay subs to support it, you knock doors to argue for it... Candidates can easily distance themselves from Blair by standing as independents, but that requires having the courage of their convictions or the intellectual honesty to simply resign, as 50% of the party has done since 1997.
BSSC - Candidates disown Labour in local polls: One slight quibble. I think they mean "Candidates disown Blair and his minions in local polls". In reality, there's only one way for the Labour Party to successfully disown Blair. It really wouldn't be hard.
Agreed, agreed and agreed.... candidates will do themselves no favours by adopting dishonest tactics to distance themselves from a dishonest regime.
And rather than denying responsibility, they should take responsibility. Sensible people vote for doers and leaders, not bystanders or hapless followers.
posted by Tim at 11:17 AM
1 Comments:
A number of articles have been spot on re the Tony Blair 'legacy' phenomenon. A similar syndrome is identifiable in the debacle over Bush's mishandling of Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath. The fiasco prompted comments in the mainstream US media about the George Bush 'legacy'. Bush cares very much about how posterity will judge him even if he and his cohorts seem oblivious to the disbelieving criticism which is increasingly the reaction, even in neutral circles, to his handling of events.It's a mirror image of the deluded attitude of Blair. The importance of the self-perceived legacy should not be underestimated. It is not just about image and spin -- policy decisions and day to day strategy (which is the only kind of strategy there is in Iraq) are being palpably influenced by Bush's projected view of how he will be seen in 5 to 10 years and Blair's increasing panic in case he is remembered as Blair of Fallujah. Perfectly understandable. Who would want their defining moment and image in history to be that of an architect of a foreign policy fiasco (Suez and Anthony Eden are the resonant analogy).
Maybe less palatable to Blair is the fact (widely acknowledged) that Blair's political life since he became leader of the Labour Party in 1994 has been largely guided by his perception of the 'successes' of Margaret Thatcher. Her legacy and place in history are becoming tarnished with the passage of time but it is worth remembering that for a few years after she went, she received many favourable and sycophantic reviews, including from Blair himself. Like Blair, she won her three consecutive elections and in the course of these electoral successes she invested heavily in the 'special relationship' with Ronald Reagan. Blair has blindly followed in her footsteps with Bush, but here is the crux of all of it: Thatcher and Reagan considered their menage a deux to be mutually politically advantageous. So it was. But the flaw in Blair's dogged loyalty to the Bush administration is that he has handcuffed himself to a dead weight. There can be little doubt that whilst ostensibly professing solidarity with Bush, Blair and his cabinet must be cursing him in private. The propensity for Bush and his advisers to turn every strategy into dross, even when, on the law of averages, they should succeed occasionally by accident, has been astonishing. This is not lost on the Blairites.
If any final evidence of Blair's obsession with perceptions and his own place in history were needed,his Dorian Gray relationship with Rupert Murdoch puts the lid on it. Blair made a deal with Murdoch in the Hayman Islands in 1995 as is well documented. The result of this was the mutual back- scratching agreement which came down to Murdoch supporting Blair in his three election campaigns. In return, Murdoch received the
right to be consulted on a number of policy arenas. This danse macabre culminated in the spectacle of Murdoch outing Blairs comments at the time of Hurricane Katrina. Blair was quoted by Murdoch as referring to critics of the botched Katrina rescue as ''gloating over our troubles''. ''Our troubles''? When did Blair and Murdoch become American citizens?
Blair's desire to cultivate a favourable image for himself for posterity is buried in the ruins of Fallujah and Tal Afar. His attempt to re-create the Thatcher illusion of success and political acumen has been misguided in its timing, its choice of partners and its historical context. It has assured his consignment to the the same scrapheap of history that Dubya will surely join.
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