Skip to Content

Ivan

Greasy Pole: Blair's Place in the Sun

Greasy Pole

Blair's Place In the Sun

Just in case he was in any doubt about whether he should have the election soon or wait for a bit, Tony Blair has had some help in making his mind up from the Sun. “It's in the bag Tony. You might as well call the Election now” he was recently urged by that newspaper, apparently on the basis of its less than penetrative analysis of Gordon Brown's budget. Furthermore the Sun, after some dithering, has at last decided about where its readers should put their cross on the fateful day: “Blair gets our support for a second term. Blair has done enough to get our backing” was the message, in appropriately heavy typeface. It was enough to have them punching the air in relief at Number Ten.

Make A Difference

Does anybody really still believe that either Labour or the Conservatives can make any difference? Is there any point in choosing between them?

Well he would say that—or something like that—wouldn't he. His audience were not to know that what Blair meant was that his government would be so hostile to outdated dogma and ideology that they would simply carry on where the Tories had left off. For example soon after the election John Major buttonholed Jack Straw to ask why New Labour were sticking to the Tory spending plans which Kenneth Clarke, Major's Chancellor, had described as “eye-wateringly tight”. Had the Tories been re-elected, said Major, they would never have stuck by them.

Greasy Pole: Two brains?

Greasy Pole

When a prime minister takes over after winning an election victory, what are the jobs awaiting attention? There is the triumphant waving to the crowd, there is the speech saying how humbly proud they are to be given this sacred trust which they will keep by running a government of all the people. There are the ministerial jobs to be dished out, to award faithful acolytes on the one hand and to pay off old scores on the other. Then, very soon, there is the business of planning the next election. Because that must never be far from their mind. Alastair Campbell, the spin doctor supremo of this government, recently told the magazine Vanity Fair that every morning he and Tony Blair get up thinking "Right, how can we lose the election". That may not be exactly true but it does illustrate the fact that any government must be persistently pre-occupied with pulling off at the next election the same kind of confidence trick which succeeded before.

Greasy Pole: Darling turns the screw

Greasy Pole

When New Labour came to power, it was assumed by many that knee-jerk government was over. But as Labour climbed the greasy pole, "principles" and beards were quickly shed

The governments of John Major and Margaret Thatcher did not go down in history for creating a harmonious country free of poverty, stress and disease but they will be remembered for a few other things—handbagging opponents, rampant unemployment and sleaze. And in response to these things, knee jerk policies—the rushing out of a parliamentary bill or some other measure after some sudden, media-motivated panic about a problem which, until then, had existed for a long time unmolested by any attention from frantic ministers. The idea of the knee-jerk was to give the impression that the government was alert to the concerns of the voters and would act on them with all possible speed.

Syndicate content


Theme by Dr. Radut.