Posts by simon g
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WH: you've bought it too. I despair.
Let me spell it out: Blair versus Far Left NEVER HAPPENED. Actually to some degree Blair was on that left - he supported unilateral nuclear disarmameent when Labour's social democrats did not.
Blair versus social democrats, liberals, moderates is a long-running debate and IS HAPPENING NOW.
Sorry to shout, but the thesis of the original post is false. To accept it is to give up on any electable liberal or centre-left alternative. And many democracies have shown that not to be the case - including NZ.
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Don C:
Yes, the far left did enormous damage to UK Labour in the early 80's. But putting Blair up against them is like suggesting everybody should now support Helen Clark to save us from Brian Tamaki.
There was a decade of Kinnock and Smith before Blair. The battle was won long before 1997, and Blair wasn't part of it.
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And on Iraq, really this is tosh:
Then there's Blair's involvement in Iraq, described by one British journalist as an 'utter disaster'
Or by the vast majority of the British, the media, the analysts, the world ...
I can think of no British equivalent of the Abu-Grahib scandal. And local repercussions – the bombing of the London Underground in 2005 – succeeded in closing down the Tube system for less than twenty-four hours.
So there's nothing to worry about then? Why Blair's increasingly authoritarian anti-terror laws?
If, heaven forbid, you still have nothing better to do with your time, you can question the wisdom and efficacy of the invasion of Iraq, but wasn't the British who screwed up.
Thanks for your permission to question the greatest disaster of our time. I'll carry on doing so, if that's OK. Blair won't be around to deal with the consequences.
After all, Reagan and Thatcher won the Cold War. Stupid as it sounded at the time, their foreign policy worked. So might Bush's. So might Blair's.
Evidence? If 'might' is all you've got, everybody wins, every time. You can't argue with stuff that hasn't happened yet.
Why do you think invading Iraq might work?
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Sorry, but Speaker has produced a condescending caricature of opposition to Blair, and it is years out of date. The "anti-Blairs" are not some ragtag, predictable, round up the usual suspects, far left crowd. They are liberals, social democrats, even libertarians. And people who don't like being lied to. You would have to have ignored the UK news very carefully to have missed all this.
But let's just focus on Labour people for now. What did they want? In short, a Labour Prime Minister.
Clark has operated under MMP, and has shifted centre/right when pragmatism required (call it expedient / spineless/ smart according to taste). People on the left are often frustrated by that, but she has never had a majority.
Thanks to FPP, Blair had massive majorities. For many years, he had no electoral pressure from the self-destructing, leader-dumping Tories. He had every opportunity, if not to build the New Jerusalem, then at least - at the very least - to hold the line against illiberal, authoritarian government, and to nudge Britain just a teeny bit leftwards.
He was not forced into compromise, or "selling out" as left leaders often are. He had overwhelming executive power, and he chose to use that power to sign up to much of Thatcher and all of Bush.
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If, like Douglas Adams, you believe in the Fundamental Interconnectedness of All Things, you might appreciate the following:
1. Trevor Mallard, SOE Minister, is first up for the government on the Muliaga story.
2. Mallard is brushed aside by Clark.
3. Dunne gets big story in Herald, complaining about Clark.
4. After midnight, Team NZ win race. Late editions of Herald drop Dunne completely. The boat is on the front page.
5. Trevor Mallard, Americas Cup Minister, was on the boat.
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My pick for the TV3 follow-up story:
After several desperate phone calls from the reporter, Bob Clarkson / John Tamihere / Michael Laws says people complaining about Deal Or No Deal need to "get a life", and in case we're a bit slow tonight, helpfully explains that "it's PC gone mad". Paul Henry might say it as well, but that's no use for TV3.
Followed by a debate on Campbell Live with a female academic.
All with cleavage footage, naturally. (Or maybe artificially)
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Bill English:
"May the Lord our God in His wisdom reveal His Divine Plan in all His Glory, namely to stop favouring the wayward sons of Presbyterian fathers and Jewish mothers and bloody well give the job back to someone who actually believes in Him, the ungrateful sod."
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Add me to your people, Graham.
I *think* we are, as you suggest, the silent majority. And if Tamaki & co won't go away, and our wretchedly superficial media won't ask him any difficult questions (Investigative journalism? Informed interviewers? Ha!), then we just have to hope that the more people see and hear of the attacker, the more they will want to defend the values and people attacked. Give him enough rope, and all that.
Maybe if he got into Parliament ...
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And right on cue, 3 News does a laughable beat-up on Wicked Feminazi Heathens Abolishing Parliament Prayer! (OK, not an exact quote, but pretty damn close).
It turns out it's not a policy, or a media release, or a statement, or a suggestion, or ... anything except an utterly innocuous, standard letter from the Speaker to MPs asking for feedback about the place, and/or wording, of the prayer in Parliament.
When even asking a question is hyped into an Assault On Our Values (complete with obligatory Destiny soundbite), there really is no hope for rational debate.
Shame on you, 3 News.
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"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me." - as an American politician once said (or probably didn't, but a good line sticks). The Destiny Haka is similarly confused. Christ crossed the sea of Galilee in a waka?
I'm happy to hear positive comments from various leaders about being inclusive and diverse and tolerant and so on, but sometimes I just wish they'd talk less about what we (rather patronisingly) alllow, and more about what we damn well proclaim, with pride.
It's called freedom.
Including the freedom to believe religious claptrap of all kinds and the freedom to protest with bad spelling. And if your faith can't cope with people freely rejecting it, that's your problem.
PS Read a New Zealand history book, Brian. Watch out for the Jews!