The Blair School of Government
Posted September 15th, 2006 by Davide Simonetti
in
Another winner from the Ministry of Stupid Ideas.
At Harvard there is the John F Kennedy Institution. Bill Clinton has his own foundation. Now Tony Blair, it seems, could have his own "school of government". According to academic and other sources, Jonathan Powell, the prime minister's chief of staff, has been sounding out the London School of Economics about the establishment of such a new body.
With fewer than 12 months to go before Mr Blair has to vacate Downing Street, the prime minister is thinking hard about his retirement plans.
Too young to vacate the international stage, he is looking at the example of the former US president Bill Clinton who wrote a lucrative autobiography, established a Clinton Foundation to help the developing world - and makes extravagant amounts of money from speeches.
Academics involved in the LSE discussions, which have been going on for six months, say the proposed school would deal with foreign and domestic policy.
As if we really needed an institution to teach Blair's disastrous policies. Why not go the whole hog and have a Presidential Library?
I would have thought HMP
I would have thought HMP Pentonville might be a more appropriate location. I'm sure he will feel at home there after Inspector Yates has had his wicked way with the poddle.
Ah hah hah hah! What would
Ah hah hah hah! What would we call it>? - the Blair School of Leadership (regardless of the public's wishes)? With such courses as 'Disengenuousness 101', 'Basic News Management', 'Underlings and Minions: Do's and Don'ts', and 'Applied War Excuses'.
RADA -- School for Political
RADA -- School for Political Sincerity queens more like it.
"Too young to vacate the international stage" -- loada tosh.
They'll be telling us next he's too young , or old, to be put on trial. They got Pinochet.
Well, more mileage ahead. Any reaction from LSE students ?
The John Reid Charm School?
The John Reid Charm School? Or the Charles Clarke School of Tact?
I can't find any reaction
I can't find any reaction from students but this paragraph in the article is interesting.
Many of the LSE students are from overseas these days, but there is a lot of political activism there as you'd expect. I go there regularly for Open Univerity tutorials. If I can find any reaction from students I'll post it.
The John Prescott School of
The John Prescott School of Etiquette
The Hazel Blears Institute of Competence
The Patricia Hewitt School of Advanced Patronising
The Gordon Brown Academy of Sulking
Any more?
The Blair Universal
The Blair Universal Leadership Learning School, with, of course, its most important IT department.
Brown School of Economics;
Brown School of Economics; that way lies madness
The Great Leader has been
The Great Leader has been offered the Chair of Politics at Rusper (Sussex) University.
God help Rusper!!
Peter Mandelson University
Peter Mandelson University of Perversion.
Geoff Hoon College of Onanism.
Mark Oaten University of Glass.
Cherie Blair School of Gargoyles.
Charles Kennedy University of Distilling.
The David Blunkett School of
The David Blunkett School of Humanity and Humility
The John Prescott School
The John Prescott School of...
Do you know I can't think of anything he's actually good at. Pity really. Would 'Poncing on the State' do?
The Hazel Blears Institute
The Hazel Blears Institute for dwarves.
The Alistair Campbell School
The Alistair Campbell School of Rotational Medicine?
The (Witheld Name of Ex Minister) Museum of Childhood and Photography?
How about a bit of direct
How about a bit of direct action to give LSE a foretaste of the reaction if they go ahead with this? I fancy occupying the office of Prof Julian Le Ponce myself, to make clear that Downing St Policy Adviser = War Criminal.
Craig
1) The Patricia Hewitt
1) The Patricia Hewitt School of Health Promotion (or "Look after your own health cause we ain't gonna help you")
2) The People of Great Britain School of Hypocracy (or "we'll moan and complain about Blair, unethical foreign policy, NHS cuts but lets keep things reasonable, I won't go on strike or protest on the streets and I certainly won't give up buying that ethically sound petrol and gas to run my car, heat my house etc, etc).
I think we should collectively do something to get rid of this corrupt Government or just shut-up and accept our own cowardice.
Why a prime minister would
Why a prime minister would want to start a political school I cannot imagine. Their example should be enough. It is the height of immodesty.
All these competitive schools: Can't we have a good old classics, or an arabic school, with my tea manager as honorary patron? Or just a nice Temple in Parthenon style where teachers and scholars can meet privately in the good weather, with tea available of course.
No doubt I've got completely the wrong idea.
Mr Blair seems to be particularly despised. That must vindicate my intuition back in 2001 when I began to dislike him for no other reason than the rhythm and sound of his speech, which was merely vacuous: "you know..." until he decided to hit hard at evil. Unfortunately for him that mode of speech has marred his face now, for all to see. Wasn't it him who started calling England, or Great Britain , 'this country' because he couldn't be bothered to call it by it's name. A sign of a traitor. Soon after the whole media followed suit. And he was going to do us all a favour, like a good chap!
"I think we should
"I think we should collectively do something to get rid of this corrupt Government or just shut-up and accept our own cowardice."
Agreed. Unfortunately we had a lot of sad Labour Mp's learning to become empty in mid-life, as if thier young foolish idealism wasn't enough. And a news media who loved their job status, and media - control.
I refused to work in public service. To moan is actually a very useful first step, given that it their demise to beigin with word of mouth. I was warned i may be called a traitor when I said in a college to a member of staff, in 2002 I am upset and wish to go to Afghanistan and join the Taliban. IN those days no one criticised this corrup government, or saw through their words. Including all my hip friends.
Cowardice can be very subtle, like not quite hearing right to begin with, knowing you wil be a lone, ineffective voice. I am sure all this blogging, (which helps to maitnain freedom of speech, where word of mouth barely exists), is having a mounting effect.
But what bright idea would you suggest for a public campaign?
"But what bright idea would
"But what bright idea would you suggest for a public campaign?"
Here's some ideas:
Watch This
Do This
Judge the so called "terrorists" like Nasrallah on their own words and actions,
judge resistance against the military industrial complex for what it is,
compare Blair/Bush/Olmert to the Nazis & terrorists whenever possible,
protest about paying the BBC their £9670633120 for lying to us,
bang on about the magna carta and David Kelly all the time,
join the peace protests,
watch alternative news programs like MOSAIC and democracy now,
don't buy newspapers,
Join the 9/11 truth movement (they have a very strong case and they are a growing public campaign). Check out this site and judge for yourselves click here They just deal with facts and they have so many crdible top brass scientists, pilots, military, structural engineers, politicians....
Like this:
"Robert M. Bowman (FM)-
Former Director of the U.S. "Star Wars" Space Defense Program in both Republican and Democratic administrations, and a former Air Force Lieutenant Colonel with 101 combat missions"
This says more about the
This says more about the weak current LSE leadership than it does about Blair. Howard Davies gets all soft in the knees when he thinks he is close to having some kind of influence. I'm hoping for a concerted and strong reaction from LSE students and staff, but then again I'm not holding my breath. I blog a bit more about it here.
"the 9/11 truth
"the 9/11 truth movement"
Since Bush appears so much in favour of torturing suspects, perhaps the idea could be tested on him, if only to find out what he knew about the collapse of the WTC (and why he appeared so sanguine when he was 'told' about it)...
Peace Studies gave rise to
Peace Studies gave rise to the more 'realistic' - or cynical - War Studies. The obvious analogy is a Tony Blair School of Misgovernment, with a focus on areas such as: foreign policy failure (military interventionism, voluntary subservience to a foreign power), public-sector mismanagement (health, education), the long-term consequences of deceit as a political strategy, etc.