We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Like rats in a sack

The only way to view the present, imploding Labour government as it fights over the cash-for-peerages issue, is like a bunch of street rats at each others’ throats. This story in the Sunday Telegraph states that Tony Blair is willing to let one of his top cronies and fund-raisers, Lord Levy, take the hit for the scandal.

In many ways, what strikes me as so distinctive about this government and its ministers is that the big bust-ups, the big fights, were not on issues of principle. At least the Tories, for all their manifest faults, fell out over things like the euro and the Maastricht Treaty, which were serious, major issues. But then the Tories were once a grown-up party, with grown-up people in it like Margaret Thatcher, Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson. Say what you like about these personages, but their rows were over issues of major substance.

It seems an awfully long time ago.

5 comments to Like rats in a sack

  • Pa Annoyed

    So far as I can tell from the linked story, didn’t Mr Blair say something along the lines of “No comment”? I know the claims of Lord Levy’s annonymous friends are in the newspaper, so they must be true, but isn’t Christine Keeler’s famous quote also quite apposite here?

    And I seem to remember the Tory scandals somewhat differently. My fallible memory, no doubt. 😉

  • RAB

    Um that was Mandy Rice Davies Pa.
    Sorry to be picky 🙂
    But I confused Hinkley and Chapman in the conspiracy thread, so what do I know!
    I do that all the time in the haste and enthusiasm to bang out a post. The essence is usally right just that the facts are a bit askew now and again…

  • Pa Annoyed

    Oh, yes, so it was. Right scandal, wrong girl.

    No need to apologise for being picky. Being picky is what makes it so much fun!

  • Or ferrets leaving a sinking ship even.

  • http://www.ratzinasack.com

    I wonder should we start legal proceedings?

    😉