Blair in India

Or to be specific: I don't see myself as isolationist or nostalgic and I deplore those tendencies when they emerge in, for example, obsession with class divisions or resentment to the euro, and yet I find myself as repulsed by Blair as I could imagine being. In other words, I think he's using those words wrongly and far too widely, just to describe any view of the world that is different from his own.

Any thoughts?

On what levels do you think national differences still exist? I mean, that statement is really broad.

Sorry, you do think that don't you? it seemed implied.

I wasn't necessarily implying that *I* think national differences still exist and retain their importance (ah, evasiveness).

What I was saying is that I think it is perfectly possible to believe that such differences are important without being a nostalgic, an isolationist or a Tory, and I was suggesting that Blair makes too many mental leaps in this direction.

Question 1: Blair's problem = Britain's problem, ie the longing to 'punch above its weight', find a role, matter etc. Why else the disproportionate spending on defence, attachment to the 'independent' nuclear capability, and jealous guarding of the UN Security Council seat. Blair has done more than any leader since Thatcher to meet those aspirations, whilst virtually every other European leader look on with envy as he jets around the world playing the international statesman (with some aplomb).

That closer to home Britain's public services are still in decline and its railway system close to near-collapse, ought to matter more than it apparently does. Its a vanity problem, and I don't blame Blair as much as the mentality that produces it.

Stevo's first sentence above = absolutely bang OTM. A bit of a backhanded compliment, though, when you consider that there was only one Prime Minister between Blair and Thatcher, and how pathetic *he* was.

Stevo's second sentence = equally OTM, really. The public service and railway issue certainly matters to me, far more than ludicrous international ambitions, and I think that's the greatest problem that some of us have with Blair. Though I agree with you that it's a mentality thing above all else, not a one-politician thing.

Blair in India. Is this the followup to Adams' "Nixon in China"?

No, more 'Clive of India'.
Yes, it seems he finds the role of jet-setting statesman a damn sight more easy than getting his own house in order. The grand gesture comes easy to him, it seems, but not getting in with the nitty gritty of day-to-day housekeeping.

Irelands problem is the exact same, though we go about it in a more sycophantic sort of way.

"Scott...of the Sahara!"

More worried that Byers is still on holiday, not that he'd be doing much. heh heh.
It seems to me that Blair is currently doing what a lot of British PM's have always done. I think maybe we have a reputation for diplomacy and we might as well maintain it, it might do some good. However, obviously, he needs to be here to help sort out the, erm, 'condition of Britain question', if I can still call it that...

"Punching above our weight": through Western history, the last-but- one Empire has often kept itself busy through setting a diplomatic or cultural example while the new Empire took over the military and economic running of things. We've tried culture and now we're trying diplomacy. It would be somewhat better if we were trying diplomacy as the voice of the Eurozone to the US rather than vice versa, though.

"Punching above our weight" ("): Stopped trains notwithstanding we are the fourth largest economy in the world. The problem is a lack of perspectives at both ends - our governing classes have been stuck in a post-Imperial mindset for ages, while our left often views any kind of acknowledgement that we might have an international role to play as arrogance at best, a closet return to Imperialism at worst. We need to work out what our weight is, in other words.

"Blair in India": the current situation between India and Pakistan isn't anyone else's fault, historically. The places Blair is being a "force for good" are the places the UK had been often a force for bad thanks to its imperial policies and its methods of handing over power. I think there is a kind of historical atonement process at work here which I welcome.

Should Blair be doing more about problems at home? Goodness yes. Mind you it would be a bit easier if he hadn't castrated the system of cabinet government.

i don't entirely see why blair has to actually be *in* the country to tackle these problems anyway (the issue of the "castrated" cabinet to one aside): india is er on the modern interweb surely, just like dorset?

Normally I'd agree with you Mark but a lot of this is about symbolism (cf Blair's post-FMD solidarity gesture of, ha, a West Country holiday).

Also he - and Byers - dont need to be *on* the stopped train, or even in the same country - to be doing something about it. But e-mail diplomacy is in its infancy I fear.

blairt23 (1:35 AM): there needs to be a skinny vs. fat girls thread
blairt23 (1:35 AM): josh, get on this
blairt23 (1:36 AM): dum-dum-dum
blairt23 (1:36 AM): i should go to bed soon if i'll be renegade grocery shopping tomorrow
byers (1:37 AM): there
byers (1:37 AM): I got on it
blairt23 (1:37 AM): YES
byers (1:37 AM): despite the large amount of fat girl discussion already on the fetish thread
blairt23 (1:37 AM): HEY
blairt23 (1:37 AM): you made me sound like a weirdo or something
blairt23 (1:37 AM): asshole
byers (1:38 AM): hahaha

(weird that blair calls byers josh)