Perhaps I should be more disturbed than I am by the possibility that our Prime Minister appears to have been beset by holy visions:
Tony Blair knows it is one of the most delicate of subjects. When asked about it he squirms and tries to change to a more comfortable line of inquiry. But quietly the Prime Minister is putting religion at the centre of the New Labour project, reflecting his own deeply felt beliefs that answers to most questions can be found in the Bible.
The Observer can reveal that Blair is to allow Christian organisations and other ‘faith groups’ a central role in policy-making in a decisive break with British traditions that religion and government should not mix.
Once again, life imitates art with Mr.Blair appearing to have lived up the Private Eye magazine caricature of him as a trendy, preachy Vicar.
All chortling aside (to be stored up and deployed at a later date) I have no way of proving that this isn’t strictly a matter of conscience. I can’t prove it isn’t, but I simply don’t buy it. The timing is far too suspicious. For me it has got all the hallmarks of a frantic search for a new moral underpinning by a politician whose quasi-evangelical ‘government for everyone’ zeal first had the sheen rubbed off of it and then had the shit kicked out of it. This is not so much an act of piety as an act of desperation.
But perhaps I am being more cynical than I need to be. They say you should never judge a man until you walked a mile in his shoes. Right now, I wouldn’t want to be in Mr.Blair’s shoes. His personal popularity is plummeting and the government he is supposed to be steering just cannot seem to do anything right anymore. Every which way he turns he sees enemies, backstabbers, plotters and sneering journalists asking questions he just cannot answer. Faced with that vista who wouldn’t want to retreat to the comforting certainties of that old-time religion?
I know I am not the first to say so but it does look increasingly likely that Mr.Blair is groping for the door marked ‘exit’.
“British traditions that religion and government should not mix.”
Which traditions would those be?
“They say you should never judge a man until you walked a mile in his shoes.”
Excellent suggestion. That way, you’re a mile away from him, and he’s shoeless.
Blair does seem to be universally despised from all sides now. But wasn’t it Blair who made Labour electable?
What do people think will happen post-Blair? Will he take his party down with him, leaving the totally-defunct Tory party gets back in charge? Or is there some other Labour candidate for the presidency?
David, I don’t buy it either. I’ve never bought Blair’s “Christianity”, always having felt it was a pose. For one thing, I cannot imagine Blair acknowledging there may be a being anywhere in the cosmos more important, with a better bead on things and more deserving of adoration than himself.
Britain has separation of church and state? I thought there was an established church.
Blair’s plan sounds eerily like Bush’s “faith-based initiatives.” Blair seemed Clintonesque when Clinton was president, and now he seems like a very articulate version of Bush.
On establishment:
Britain and America have grown into strange mirror images of one another in this respect.
Yes, we have an established church, but none of the requirements for membership of the Church of England for participation in public life that motivated the US ban on establishment survives today.
We have openly atheist politicians in all the main parties, as well as religious denominations. But making a fuss about it is treated as eccentric, a sort of bad manners. One’s religion is a private matter as much as one’s sexuality in Britain.
Public professions of religious faith and other strong emotion were viewed with great suspicion in Britain in the 20th century–though it seems to be changing. Emotional appeal is more respectable than it used to be.
In the US, despite a formally secular constitution, it seems to be very difficult to be a politician without making a point of one’s religious observance. Currently this still makes British people feel as queasy as if the pols appeared naked on election posters.
On faith groups and New Labour:
Caution! Soft totalitarianism at work. Religious groups form an independent power base in civil society, and co-opting them is naturally part of the Project. They don’t just want your money, and your life. If you think you have one, they want your soul, too.
“It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be.”
I think Blair’s enough of a realist to know that it’s time up. He only has to look at the history of all British PMs to see that (eg: Her Madge, Mrs T)
But I think he’s still deluding himself that he can choose the time and place of his retirement, with a comfortable berth in the aristocracy lined up for him afterwards (perhaps British Ambassador to Washington, or appointed EU President?)
Hence his crude attempts to manipulate the David Kelly enquiry, and this re-badging as a conviction Christian, rather like all those TV evagelists who sleep with 600 prostitutes, beg forgiveness, and then do it all over again.
He wants to be in a position to choose how to bow out. And he’s still vain enough to think he can do it.
My guess? He’ll go when Campbell goes. And then the odious Brown will take over, just before the economy collapses, or at least the public sector economy.
I hope it’s all as bloody and terrible for them as possible, and not one of them escapes from the blame of wrecking Britain, especially Brown, the next British PM.
EU Delanda Est claims that Blair’s relgiosity is a pose. Maybe, maybe not. It has always struck me as one of the oddities of Blair that he combines a fierce tactital will to win, a willingness to ditch former allies without compunction, while at the same time adopt the pose of a caring trendy vicar.
To be honest, I don’t think it right to cast doubts on the sincerity of any man or woman’s religious beliefs. He may be 100 pct genuine about it.
But as Milton Friedman has observed, sincerity is a much overpraised virtue.
Oh, I don’t think Blair’s religiosity is a pose. I think he’s completely sincere. It’s one of the things I dislike about him.
Anyone who thinks bad behavior and devout religious beliefs are mutually exclusive…no, never mind. It’s Monday morning and I haven’t had enough coffee for a proper atheist rant.
Some weeks ago, IDS employed the director of the Conservative Christian Fellowship as his Political Secretary.
http://www.ccfwebsite.com/news_display.php?ID=88&type=news
It’s interesting to watch the whole Blair thing play out. From here in the US it seems as if the real animus against him is that he has had the temerity to act on his principles when they aren’t the current wisdom — and be effective. Puttering ineffectuals, the occasional British eccentric, those are all okay, but have a man take a real stand when it matters and you all turn on him. Seems like a shark feeding frenzy from here …
rkb: Yes, so far and so wrong…
I don’t mean you personally, just the American public duped by the beaming Tony…
I’m not so sure. Maybe we’re more used to, and automatically discount, the media-oriented behavior that he and Clinton mastered so well. But I do think that whatever pettiness or slipperiness on small issues, he has seemed consistent on some of the big issues throughout his term in office.
Again, speaking as an American, I see very few anywhere in Europe or in the UK who seem willing to say, “There is a civilization under attack here, serious attack by those who will not stop until they have destroyed the very basis of our lives. And I believe those lives and that civilization to be worth defending . We can and must bear the cost and take the risk of doing so.”
It saddened me when I was last in Britain a year ago … compared to even 10 years agao, there was so much more apathy in everyone I spoke with. So very few seemed to feel there was anything they did that mattered. A decade ago I could still have serious conversations about politics, economics etc. This last time around the only conversations I heard were about the most shallow and unimportant topics.
Just one unscientific set of data points. But sometimes it takes a little distance to see what’s going on in a country, and that’s what I see in Britain these days.
rkb,
We realise that Blair’s homefront predicament is a puzzle to so many Americans who see him as a principled, Churchillian war-hero.
However, had you been living in the UK for the last six years, your view of Mr.Blair would be quite different. If you wish to acquaint yourself with some of the reasons why Blair and New Labour are growing so unpopular, might I suggest you take the time to peruse through our archives.
“[…]he has seemed consistent on some of the big issues throughout his term in office.”
Indeed he has. If you look at what New Labour has actually done, rather than listening to the “Tony Blair PM = I’m Tory Plan B” claptrap they’ve fostered, Britain’s institutions have been transformed with astonishing speed and next to no resistance.
And indeed we are subdued and apathetic. Most of my conversations of any length on the topic have turned to: how can we get out? where can we go? rather than: how do we fight?
Some of us who would like to defend the Enlightenment and capitalism against Islamic fundamentalism–and would have preferred to have started doing so 20 years ago–find ourselves already beseiged from another quarter. We are under “serious attack by those who will not stop until they have destroyed the very basis of our lives”. Their leader is Tony Blair.
Okay, THAT argument I can buy.
I do think Blair is utterly wrong to believe that the best of Britain can co-exist with statism, with Eurocracy etc.
It’s still fascinating to see the more left wing elements of Labour go after him too. I was just wondering if you all had implicit term limits for PMs.
rkb – Blair did well in the spotlight of DC, but Americans are easily duped, I’m afraid. The well-spoken, slightly smarmy younger brother standing up pluckily for his big brother to modestly accepted riotous applause. Please. Spare us. Blair is very far to the left of even American lefties like Ted Kennedy. His politics would be completely unacceptable in the US. In fact, I’d bet a dollar to a dime that he could not get elected, on his hard left socialist policies (statism, centrism, high taxation, income redistribution, multiculturalism) to a schoolboard in the US, once they found out where he’s coming from.
Saying that Tony Blair is regarded as wonderful in the United States and therefore his domestic policies are irrelevant is like saying Bruce Willis is great in his action hero roles and therefore deserves to be running the United States. Hint: there is a country with a population of 60m people who are living under the socialists and your high opinion of their leader doesn’t change the Soviet style NHS, the collapsing, chambolic and insanely expensive train service, a centralised education system – fired by socialism, not the needs of children – that has a new plan every six months, mass illegal immigration, roads that are not adequate to carry traffic forced onto them by the shambolic train services, crime that is simply off the register with never a police officer in sight anywhere, plus police stations that are open from 9 to 5 and after that you’re on your own and the senior judge of Britain saying that first-time-caught burglars wouldn’t be sent to prison, the disarming of the population so they are dependent on an invisible police force, a surrendering of our ancient liberties and the pulling down of the pillars of our ancient law to please his European masters … oddly enough rkb, British people who pay taxes are more interested in the deterioration of their day-to-day lives than they are in your high opinion in the United States of Tony Blair’s “principled” performance.
WHEW!! Guess I struck a nerve ….
I don’t necessarily think Blair is wonderful, shining, great etc. I strongly disagree with his domestic UK policies. And I can’t stand Bruce Willis.
However, I *do* have the impression he has been consistent and articulate with regard to action in Iraq … the reasons for it, and what’s at stake. So I continue to be fascinated by the charges that he wasn’t.
Having moved to New York a few years ago, you all have my sympathies re: living under absurd, nannying collectivist and controlling government. I’m not too thrilled with my new state leaders in Albany either.
My suspicion, rkb, is that Blair was either
a) blackmailed into Iraq by US government knowledge of something very dirty in his government, or
b) seduced by his own hype and thought he should take a principled stand, not because he has principles, but because he is sincerely in love with his own self image as someone who takes principled stands.
Speaking of who is easily duped—who is it that has been electing the Blairs of the world—the US or our more mature and non-dupeable cousins in Britain and Europe?
Come to that—who has been duped into buying into the massive unelected beureaucratic nitghmare called the EU? Amazing how us simple minded Americans keep resisting that sort of thing. Given how easily duped we are, and all.
Sorry, veryretired, I did not mean my comments as an across-the-board slur. I stand second to no one in my admiration for the US. However, folks in your part of the world do seem to have a propensity to give undue attention to snake oil salesmen. A lot of people think that someone with an English accent somehow gets extra points as a human being. Frankly, give me a Texas accent any day. Blair isn’t a particularly good public speaker – it’s just that, for some reason, American lawyers aren’t trained in debate and British barristers are. It’s a knack that they get with drilling, and some can think on their feet with breathtaking brilliance. Blair isn’t one of them. He’s pretty much run of the mill. When I say “duped”, I mean you have accepted someone as genuine when you are without the means of judging that individual. It would be like me trying to evaluate the skills of an Australian Rules rugby player.
To be fair, no one in Britain voted to go into the EU because they were never given the opportunity. They were slipped into it sideways while they weren’t looking. They voted to go into a free trade association along the lines of NAFTA – the European Economic Community. The rest was done behind closed doors and announced later. And now Tony Blair, when he eventually gets up the nerve (he’s not so bold at home) to hold a referendum on the euro, is trying to see if he could get away with including non-British citizens (EU citizens living in Britain who can vote in local, but not national, elections) who have absolutely so stake in our history or our currency. In fact, given that their own countries committed economic suicide by joining, presumably most would like Britain to be in the same boat. These number 3/4 million people – enough to weight the vote in a referendum of British people voting on their own currency. This is the Tony Blair you don’t know.
Most British people did not vote for Tony Blair. The Brits were fed up with John Major’s government, and saw Tony Blair as a most unattractive alternative, so they didn’t vote. The majority who turned out at the ballot box were highly motivated Labourites. Even then, Blair only got something like 27% of the vote. Hardly a ringing endorsement.
I am inclined to agree with Mark, above. His points a and b are both extremely credible – if you know Blair.
I apologise unreservedly to our American cousins for the unintended slur. Americans have the richest and freest country in the world – partly due to very sophisticated attitude to (American) politicians and partly due to eternal vigilance. Eternal vigilance takes energy, which Americans have aplenty, but it pays off
I think Joanne Jacobs is right on the money (as usual) in seeing an uncanny parallel with Dubya’s faith-based initiatives. Whatever else, Blair does appear to believe passonately he is doing the right thing (the Iraq war was a good thing) even though it is a rather long suicide note for his political career in the UK.
Anyone heard of the Alpha church-based leadership movement?
Two quick points to consider.
First, re: faith and government, I am absolutely AGAINST an established religion. But if it’s okay for libertarians or others to act on their secular principles in their capacity as government officials, what specifically is wrong with people doing so based on their religious faith? It seems to me that the key here is that the ultimate say should be had by the voters so that no monolithic agenda can be locked into place, whether it is socialist or Anglican or fascist or …. etc. Voters should be able to decide if they are willing to accept the results of those choices or oppose them, either on practical grounds (their short term effects) or on grounds of principle (what they might lead to later on).
Which leads me to my second point. namely, that if I understand the British system correctly, you all elect far fewer of your officials than we do in the US. I vote for executive, legislative and judicial offices at the local, county, state and federal levels. I vote for the local official who keeps the financial books in my township, for the state treasurer, for the attorney general for my state, for the local magistrates etc. Now, not every voter is as involved as I’d like them to be in making informed choices aboutl these levels of government. However they CAN be if things are proposed or put into place that they dislike.
Perhaps that fact, plus the fact that we’ve had Hollywood here for a long time, causes us to look at someone like Blair a little differently than you Brits do. We are perhaps more willing to overlook some aspects of his policies because here we could CHANGE those aspects while also approving of, say, his stand on Iraq.
Just a thought …. Comments???
rkb – The British don’t elect judges, police chiefs, fire chiefs or schoolboards, so the electoral structure is very shallow. Second, once a government is in, there are basically no checks on it. Blair, overnight, seemingly on a whim as it wasn’t announced beforehand, abolished the ancient and valuable post of Lord Chancellor. I believe this post is around 1,000 yrs old or older. He seems not to have entirely understood what the Lord Chancellor’s place is in the legal infrastructure of Britain. He (through the Home Secretary, although nothing in the gov’t gets done unless it’s what Blair wants) also wants to abolish the right to trial by jury in many instances. What can the British do about it? Absolutely nothing. If they had one-tenth of the aggression of the American electorate, they would be emailing, faxing and calling their elected representative, but they don’t. They talk of “our political masters” – failing to realise that the voter, not the representative, is the master and the master gives the orders. I despair.