Clare gets nasty

Clare Short, who resigned as international development secretary in the aftermath of the Iraq war, said Mr Blair should pass on the leadership before things got “even nastier”.

Christopher Lee must have died and gone to heaven, when Peter Jackson offered him the role of Saruman, in Jackson’s stupendous Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Having read the book, many times, Lee will have appreciated every single nuance, every single eyebrow movement, and every single evil grin, of the grotesque Saruman character, as this Maian angel descended into a Sauronian hell, within the mortal clutches of Middle-Earth.

Like many other sad people, sexually unfulfilled in the desperate years of teenage, I also wade through the pages of the masterly Lord of the Rings, every year, to try to cure myself from the terrible memories of all those laughing girls, who walked away from the spot-ridden boy. Or at least, every other year; I now alternate it with the Silmarillion. But recently, as I’ve come to the light side of rationality and escaped from the clutches of the dark side of collectivism, it becomes more and more obvious what the Lord of the Rings is really all about. And forgive me, if you already knew this, those years ahead of me on the frame. It’s quite clearly a description of the fight between the Mordorish tyrannies of socialism against the free western peoples of Middle-Earth, as the Red Soviet eye, in the east, tries to crush the rest of the free world, under an imposed order of monstrous Nazgul commissars.

We have our own western wizards — Hayek, Von Mises, Rand — who know the power of the dark side, and how to undermine its addictive attraction; we have our own cold-war warriors — Reagan and Thatcher — who know how to combat the dark side’s physical power. We also have our unsung English heroes, from the land of the shires, putting themselves on the line to help bring about the end of this threatened EU-based collectivist serfdom — Gabriel Syme, David Carr, and Perry de Havilland.

But what of the other side, particularly in relation to this Dis-United Kingdom? Now you might want to cast Tony Blair as Sauron, with Alastair Campbell as the Mouth of Sauron. But I have an alternative proposal: Gordon Brown is Sauron, the most dreadful Galbraithian servant still remaining on Middle-Earth, bearer of the secret flame of John Kenneth Morgoth. The UK Treasury is therefore Barad-Dur, the dark brooding tower of the burning eye of the terrible Dark Lord, and home to the disembowelling taxation policies of the Idiotarians.

Blair, I suggest, is the twisted Saruman, who arranges a hidden alliance with the Dark Lord, via the mysterious Palantir of the Granita restaurant deal. He’s an angel in white, who appears out the mists of the west, seemingly capable of keeping the western peoples free, and looking like the passionate saviour of freedom. But as time unwinds, so do the secrecies of his plots, to wrap these self-same peoples in a despairing tyrannous ring of taxation, horror, and EU servitude. Wormtongue Campbell does what he can, but eventually even the slippery Wormtongue is uncovered for the deceptive rogue he always was, never without half an eye on the money he’ll make from his memoirs.

So, who now is the Mouth of Sauron? Charlie Whelan flew the coop long ago, to become the more semi-independent Witch-King of Angmar; which has left a prominent vacancy. Who then, from the single red eye of the Dark Lord, is the one seen as more deserving of his immense trust, in relation to the self-serving Saruman? Step forward, please, Ms Clare Short.

When she calls for Blair to go, it is the Dark Lord himself calling for Blair to go, so Sauron can hold both Barad-Dur and Orthanc under the heavy iron grip of his envious-Scottish torture instruments. The reward for the Mouth of Sauron will be immense; it will be whichever great department of state she wants, once the free peoples of Middle-England are ruled directly from Barad-Dur.

The end of Blair is nigh, and even closer than I thought just two weeks in politics ago. He may still appear to have great armies, but these will soon crumble, as his Milburnian generals desert him; he may still appear all-powerful, but his staff will soon be broken, by the economics of Rothbard; and he may still appear angelic. But, methinks, to the free peoples of Middle-Earth, his voice is rapidly losing its charm.

Remember what Gandalf himself, said, Tony. There can be only one Lord of the Rings. And baby, it ain’t you. So get out the way, please, Tony, get out of the way. And then we can expose Brown to a more direct and hostile fire, to bring down this red-in-tooth-and-claw socialist monster.

With you still protecting his image, Middle-Englanders may slumber abed, thinking they’re safe. But with you gone, Tony, they will see the enemy, for what he is, arise, and crush him. So, for the sake of us all, and even to ultimately get your own delayed revenge upon him, I ask you again, get out of the way. There’s a good chap.

We don’t want no third term, from you, or even more taxes, or even more welfare bills. And things aren’t going to ‘come right’ for you, before October 2005, your alleged pencilled-in election date. This is called clutching at straws, Tony. It’s what John Major did, hanging on till the bitter end. But if you want to avoid his dreadful fate, get out while the going’s good.

Here’s even how to do it, too. You see, we do care.

Go on your shameless Caribbean freebie, with all the little Blairs, and the delightful Mama Blair. And when you’re there, my dear leader, soaking up the sun, while I toil back here to pay for your security and flights, bear these simple three words in mind, from a humble serf and taxpayer. They really are for your own good: Don’t come back!