El presidente

He seems "progressive" and all, but he seems like the UK Gore ; one side of the head is liberal, the other conservative.

also: how do you think his christianity impacts on his war mongering?

How is Tony Blair a warmonger?

surely by sending planes and missiles to blow up targets inside afganistan, plus doing some of the diplomatic groundwork for these attacks

Have never been particularly impressed by Blair. He has always struck me as a more Christian, family-values version of Clinton: claiming to represent the left, but implementing some policies that are more conservative than that of Thatcher or Reagan.

It's nice that his government has done an about face about student funding, but it's a little late for all of the less well off kids who had no choice but to not go these past few years.

And this may sound petty, but his voice sounds exactly like that of Rik from the Young Ones. It's hard for me to take him seriously for that reason when he speaks.

Still, he is better than Bush...

yes, and he *looks* like Seinfeld.

Mass extra-parliamentary action would stop him, same as it did Thatcher: but that will only begin to gather AFTER the mess is deeply in place, for some time.

Tony Blair is an eminent Victorian transported, unfortunately, from the British Empire to the American one. He glows with moral fervour, but has to stand 'shoulder to shoulder' with the US before he can civilise the hottentots.

Blair is deeply authoritarian, but somewhere in his conservative heart there's a kind of boy scout glow, a Christian imperative to Do Good Things. He would like to be the conscience of the world, but his head is so far into the clouds that he can't see the mess around his feet.

The People's Tony presides over an island with 2.5 million surveillance cameras in which violent crime is nevertheless on the rise, the trains don't run on time (or even on the tracks), the meat can kill you, there are fuel strikes and floods, and the IRA still refuse to hand over their weapons.

In the middle of this chaos comes Tony's 'finest hour', a war on a country even more chaotic than Britain where the average income is $200 a year. Suddenly Britain's failings are forgotten, as Blair, nobly and articulately pledges allegiance to the sentiments and policies of George W. Bush, a day or so later, designates Britain 'Blairstrip One', a great floating carrier for US jets on bombing missions, and puts British Harriers and nuclear subs at the disposal of the US.

I hear he has recently moved Tornado fighters closer to London and given them permission to shoot down incoming hijacked airliners. I wonder where he got that idea? And, by threatening to shoot them out of the sky if they're unlucky enough to pick a flight that gets hijacked, is he 'protecting' British citizens, and perhaps Big Ben, from the consequences of the Christian excesses of his own rhetoric?

(i'm not a fan either, but it seems a bit harsh to blame the FLOODS on blair...)

it seems a bit harsh to blame the FLOODS on blair

Environmental collateral damage. A direct consequence of having to choose between Kyoto and the 'special relationship'.

To be fair though Blair did actually bang on a fair bit about Kyoto in his speech last week, I think for obvious pointed reasons that he disagrees with the American stance. Actually it iwar has been a great thing for the Labour party, twice in a week they have managed to sneak through radical policy changes without it really raising a blip on the radar (Railtrack and Student funding).

That said I think your characterisation of him as a transplanted Victorian is pretty apt. That said much of what you talk about here "The People's Tony presides over an island with 2.5 million surveillance cameras in which violent crime is nevertheless on the rise, the trains don't run on time (or even on the tracks), the meat can kill you, there are fuel strikes and floods, and the IRA still refuse to hand over their weapons" is legacy from previous governements, or non-political.

"The People's Tony presides over an island with 2.5 million surveillance cameras in which violent crime is nevertheless on the rise"
Sorry for being a smartypants, but surely violent crime appears to be on the increase cos the 2.5 million cameras help the police to see it and thus the crime figures are inflated?

Momus - I think the word you're looking for is 'communitarianism', which ranks above even sociobiology for rationalizing the same old shit, and is EXPLICITLY reactionary to boot.
Good point also on how the UK is deteriorating exponentially, infrastructure-wise. it's a bit late now to keep blaming everything on the previous gov't, although their method of systemically looting the country before disappearing would've shocked Mobutu. I think Tony believes being President of the World is a station equal to himself, unlike the arduous, thankless job of trying to run a country that's falling apart faster than soggy fax paper.

Isn't the whole point of fax paper that it is difficult to get soggy?

UK "socialism" has always only EVER been state-centric "war" socialism (= Methodist Stalinism haha). There's good points, and there's bad points...

(what kind of a rubbish world crisis is it where the only song-writer I'm able to quote to "illuminate" matters is David Byrne!!)

No DG, cuz only abt 0.005% of the cameras actually have working tapes in em. Surveillance = classic cheapo solution (i. let robots do it; ii. forget to supply robots).

How would you feel if they threw a 1984 and even Big Bother never turned up?

Big Bother haha

OK Mark, I only meant that a 'rise in crime' is illusory and more to do with detection than thugs going crazy ape bonkers with masonry drills etc...

Oh I agree abt that. If there was tape in the cameras there would be totally nothing on em (except of course strange phenomena cf my neglected thread abt supernatural internet activity humph)

How do you know it was neglected? Perhaps some ghosties stopped people replying, eh?

>%—O