I hope you’ve all had a good Christmas or whatever it is these days. Ours was quite gloomy with large storms, but we Brits like nothing better than a bit of gloom and melancholy as we binge drink our way into a new year.
Everything is a bit half-heated, even the looting is lacksadasical; under Thatcher the beach would have been stripped bare overnight. In truth we’re suffering from a national bout of PMT – Prime Ministerial Tension as we’re waiting for Tony to bugger off to a lucrative career spouting meaningless platitudes in the States. We’re also sending you David Beckham and Posh Spice, known over here as ‘Thick and Thin’. Look on it as payback for giving us McDonalds.
Our politics is often interesting and, if you’re a safe distance away, often grotesquely funny. Think of us as a banana republic with a reasonable GDP and a lot of things start making more sense.
Tony knows he’s on the way out and has been spending his time openly concentrating on preserving his legacy. Now, you and I know his legacy is Iraq, but on planet Tony he wants to be remembered for…. well we’re not sure really, he’s a bit vague on this. No matter. Actually, Parliament is going to discuss Iraq this afternoon, for the first time in almost three years, well it is a minor issue of little import. so insignificant that Tony’s not going to attend the debate, Indeed television viewers will have the chance to see him leg it out of the chamber as fast as his little legs will carry him as the debate is immediately after Prime Ministers Questions. That perfectly captures the essence of the man.
Our Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett to give the government’s side. It is commonly agreed that She is the most useless Foreign Sec since the Danish invasion of 850AD.
What you may not realise is that, next to Tony, George is a man living in the real world. Tony hasn’t changed his mind and still is advocating the spread capitalism by force neo-con doctrine… There’s been no Baker Report over here despite the growing number of top military officials voicing their increasingly agonised complaints.
Tony’s response was a classic case of a deluded messiah complex. In a recent speech he told them:
“On the part of the military, they need to accept that in a volunteer armed force, conflict and casualty may be part of what they are called upon to face.”
The response from UK soldiers was forceful, angry and contained many colourful obscenities.
Naturally Tony’s real political plan is to try to shaft Gordon Brown, the current Chancellor of the Exchequer and Heir Apparent. They have worked closely together for many years and naturally despise each other. As a taste, Tony’s recently been having a holiday in Florida with Robin Gibb, during which time Gordon’s boys leaked that their man would not get involved in celebrity culture and wouldn’t be hanging around with stars. Nobody was surprised when Gordon went on a tour of Bollywood a week later, but it gives you an idea of how petty the constant squabbles between the two are.
Gordon and Tony share one big problem; Iraq. Gordon supported Tony all the way and now has to find a way of extracting himself from this disaster. It’s going to be hugely enjoyable to watch him try to squirm his way out of this one. Even more fun than his occasional attempts to promote himself as a normal human being.
Tony’s planning to go in July after swanning around the G8 summit, presumably to lecture everyone on how the world should be run, his usual trick and then doing bugger all. He did this last year during the British presidency of the European Union and upset everyone so much that he had to do a deal involving handing back 20 million quid to stop the presidency being a total shambles. It was Merkel and the Germans that got him out of that one, albeit at a huge cost. Oh how the nation rejoiced at having the Germans save us.
But Tony may go well before then, possibly in handcuffs. Basically he’s been giving honours to people who donated huge sums to the Labour Party and there had been a long and discrete police inquiry going on. Now Tony’s not adverse to blocking police investigations; recently he stopped an investigation into the BAE/Saudi al-Yammah arms contract. Now that has always been dodgy. It was initially agreed with Thatcher, who for unknown reasons brought her son Mark along. Mark arrived in Saudi Arabia penniless and left a few days later as a multi-millionaire.
This investigation was really getting somewhere and the police were about to be given details of the Saudi royal family’s Swiss bank accounts when Blair personally stopped the inquiry on the grounds of national security. Unfortunately MI6 have said there was no national security question. Whoops! This is now being investigated by the OECD as it is a clear breach of the anti-bribery charter we signed.
But back to the cash for honours thing. Tony’s party paymaster, Lord Levy, AKA Lord Cashpoint has been arrested, as has his political advisor – also questioned about perverting the course of justice. Over 90 people questioned and we’re getting almost daily reports of Downing St insiders being questioned under oath and there are rumours that charges are going to follow and higher scalps are about to be collected.
If one of the Downing St insiders is actually charged the men in grey suits will strike and tell Tony to go and go now.
A very British coup. We like our history over here and here’s a little quote from Tony Blair about the previous government, speaking just before the election that brought him to power:
Sleaze has become the hallmark of the dying days of this administration
As they say, history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.