Conform or f*** off
Having taken the shuddering pirate hulk of the Labour Party to the right of the Conservatives, Cap'n 'Mad Eye' Blair is now pitching to take it into the clear black(shirt) water to the east of the British National Party. There really isn't a lot to say about the sheer ghastliness of Blair's speech today, but here are a few vignettes:
The BBC started their summary of the story on the 7pm R4 news with the word 'Tolerance'. There was me naively thinking that after Nick Robinson earned himself a gold star with his performance yesterday things were looking up in the BBC's cojones department. Alas not.
Far from exhibiting 'tolerance', the rhetoric is pure BNP/Little Green Footballs/Mel Phillips territory. We've had a few guys like that in the comments here and what comes across is a palpable sense of FEAR. Now, what would Tony possibly have to fear? He's only unleashed a wave of extremism across the Middle East, fuelled extremists here with his authoritarian policies, is sitting on a pile of (largely Muslim) corpses higher than Nelson's Column and has attached himself firmly to a Christian fundamentalist US President who appears to be palpably short of a full deck. Oh, and sold a few peerages.
The speech was welcomed by Dominic Grieve, which should give the lie to the idea that David Cameron has led the Tories into the centre ground - there are plenty of indications that they're still the stupid Nasty Party of Tebbit and Thatcher - when the tabloids shout 'heel' they still come running. To ram home the point, Blair praised Cameron for supporting him over immigration. Why on earth are the Tories, Labour and the BNP scrapping over the foam-flecked Mail reader vote? Surely there must be someone sane left in British politics who sees this for what it is? Please, God, don't let it be Galloway again.
This all comes after a couple of years of strenuous tabloid myth-making about either rabid Muslims (of course) or bending-over-backwards liberal councils trying to ban Christmas or force innocent schoolchildren to eat halal meat. Neatly, this is filleted in the Guardian today, in an article I can thoroughly recommend to all. As it happens, the real intolerant extremists seem to be in the high echelons of Government and the press, ever eager to, well, bend over backwards to give voice to the maddest bigots complaining about 'Caribbean' carols or halal Christmas dinner (Chicken Yoghurt has an excellent thread with a good row in the comments on this subject).
This section neatly sums it up:
So that's:
- Belief in democracy from a man who rules with the support of 22% of the electorate and thinks that's a dandy mandate
- Belief in the rule of law from a man who supports control orders, 90 days detention without charge, has supported numerous Bills later struck down as unlawful, permits torture flights to use UK airports, thinks Guantanamo Bay is merely 'an anomaly' and is chipping away at judicial independence and the right to jury trials
- Belief in tolerance from a man who pays no attention to views that conflict with his own and whose party uses the dirtiest smear tactics against anyone daring to air such views
- Belief in equal treatment from a man who is desperately trying to nobble a police investigation by manipulating the legal system using his political appointees
- Belief in respect for the country from a man who's mortgaged the country's schools and hospitals to anyone with a few quid, ruined our international standing and reputation and severely damaged the Armed Forces by cuts, privatisations and illegal wars
- Belief in the shared heritage of Britain from a self-proclaimed 'modernist' who has no sense of the worth of historic buildings, supports an policy towards northern city housing borrowed from the Luftwaffe and is busy trying to water down the planning system to allow building on the Green Belt.
I don't know what I hold in common with Tony Blair but I suspect I'd quite like to be holding, in common with a large number of Britons, a baseball bat with his name on it.
P.S. A humorous consequence of the proposed 'crackdown on religious funding' occurs to me - as Blair says:
One of the hallmarks of Blair's regime is his willingness to listen any 'faith group', even allowing them to take over schools as Sir Peter (knighted by Blair) Vardy's Emmanuel Schools Foundation have done in the North East. Indeed, without the political support given to fundamentalists and their power within Cabinet (Blair, Kelly amongst many others) it's difficult to imagine that recent rise of the religious right in the UK would have been quite so alarming. Is Blair cracking down on himself? Will future Academy school sponsors be thrown out for supporting un-British things like, well, creationism. Darwin, of course, is from the UK, modern creationism is a foreign import. Support your British scientific heritage, Tony, not these foreign extremists.
P.P.S.
A key complaint of the Mail (or in this case the Times) is that loony left political correct do-gooders withhold money from good honest Christian groups. As MoT puts it:
So in fact the state already puts limits on funding for groups seeking to sponge off the public purse to promote religion. So what the hell is Blair doing crowing about it now?
Brilliant analysis which
Brilliant analysis which leaves the Bliar poodle (probably female) where he deserves to be ie up the creek etc. The muslim community is the most law abiding group of people in these sceptered isles. This megalomaniac must take responsibility for disaffection caused by his catamite like subservience to the one someone has described as The Idiot Son. Would our Great Leader care to tell the muslims what specific integration he would like to see. Would he like them to "go to the pub" in the evening? Or would he like more of their young women to be unmarried single mothers? Or perhaps he would like them to simply convert to Christianity?
So, it's come to this. After
So, it's come to this. After totally destroying Britain's credibility on the world stage by facilitating an aggressive war, that's now lost, Bliar gets down in the muck with the fascists by playing the race card, despite his denials.
The far-right press, as well as the BBC, will be full of Muslim bashing for the foreseable future now they've been given the green light by this despicable little man.
So conform to our
So conform to our "tolerance" or f#ck off is the message our "tolerant" society's leader gives to the world today! Erm, hasn't anyone picked up a teensy-weensy bit of irony there?
If anyone mistook Blair for the epitome of tolerance in the first place they must have been either out of their skull or deluded or both. In the ten years this bucket of shit has posed as the UK's prime minister there is nothing he has ever said to suggest the slightest bit of tolerance about him.
On the other hand there's plenty showing him up to be the small-minded, social-climbing bigot and coward he really is. We've seen him toadying-up to the illiterate Emperor so many times to wonder if his make-up staff's permanent job is to wipe the shit off his nose. We've seen a parliamentary Labour Party so terrified of a quisling who seems to perform a remarkable transformation between Washington DC and Westminster from a Wormtongue to a Dictator.
Only a country itself drowning in decadence, selfishness and cowardice could have put up with such an unspeakable creature for so long. Perhaps, after all, we do get the governments we deserve?
you forgot to mention the
you forgot to mention the communities minister ruth kelly, who is supposed to represent gay and lesbian rights and is currently trying to opppose an equal rights bill for northern ireland and is a member of opus dei. how tolerant of her.
im all for tolerance and getting rid of intolerance but freedom of speech means hearing things i dont want to hear, things that offend me. if that means some muslim fundamentalist nob going on about something, thats his right as it is if some bnp nob does the same, or some israeli nob. thats tolerance.
Blair is just trying to
Blair is just trying to frame a debate that was based upon getting the Monkey in DC agreeing to his whistlestop tour of the ME to frame a peace deal. He is screwed by the ISG report because Bush is ignoring it. As for the BBC, pravda on the Thames
Having been shafted by the
Having been shafted by the demented dwarf over in Washington, the poodle decided to throw a tantrum upon his return.
Deciding to take a poke at anyone that did not agree with the poodle's view of things.
But I certainly did not see any "tolerance" in that speach. Nor did I see a man who I would want to be the face of my country to the world.
The more I saw the poodle's speach on the box last night. The more I found his face morphing into that of Oswald Ernald Mosley.
Are we now seeing the true face of NuLabor?
A party that the poodle has moved so far right we will soon be seeing blackshirts back on our streets, or brownshirts?
As for Ruth Kelly, a bigot blinded by her Opus Dei membership, can she honestly carry out her duties with-out conflict?
Can anyone imagine this
Can anyone imagine this rhetoric being directed at Jews....?
BB
Yes, unfortunately. That's
Yes, unfortunately. That's rather the point of the Mosley comparison.
Well - having received a
Well - having received a good kicking in Washington, its only natural our dear leader wishes to deliver a good kicking the second he gets home. And who more deserving than the poorest group in our society.
The usual carnival of non
The usual carnival of non sequiturs and meaningless pronouncments. We should bear in mind that Blair is a product of the public relations industry, which explains the sheer inanity of his public statements. The PR/Marketing system exists to thrawt understanding and undermine rational knowledge.
His disingenuous mis-interpretation of the 'Rule of Law' reveals his mendacious intent. Contrary to popular misconception the rule of law is not about 'law abiding' subjects obeying every command of corrupt legislators. Quite the reverse, the rule of law is intended as a safeguard against arbitary governance and a protection for the liberty of individuals. Its purpose is to limit the power of the state, not subject the population to series of assaults on their basic rights.
What Blair really means is rule by laws. They've got that in North Korea.
I quite agree wiht your
I quite agree wiht your analysis, that nobody seems to have picked up on the ectreme irony is serious too.
Almost as funny as the rolling vaccuous "why why oh why cant I celebrate Christmas? / the pc brigade have gone too far" debate which seems to be lolling around the media like a does of the clap.
The Daily Mail's hysteria
The Daily Mail's hysteria around Christmas adds yet another layer of nauseating horror to a traditional 'season of good will' already overburdened with saccharine sentimentality, meretricious religiosity and commercial cupidity. Yes, these bigoted bastards have found a way to make it even more unpleasant for us.
It was bound to happen, this clash between human rights and the fossil relics of British feudalism represented by the established church. The point that they're all so assiduously missing is a simple one: no one's trying to 'ban christmas,' but why should public resources be used to priviliege a particular religion and its shrinking band of followers?
Well, exactly. If had dared
Well, exactly. If had dared to say anything like that towards Jews he'd be out of a job by now. But picking on Muslims ok because they're mostly darkies, hence inferior to whites.
I liked the idea of the baseball bat & could see myself mashing his head into a pulp. For someone who wouldn't dream of killing another human, why is it I get so much pleasure at Blair suffering a horribly, long-drawn out death (with say 25 years' of unremitting pain and suffering before the inevitable visit by the Grim Reaper?)
Why is it that I feel so much scorn and hate for this miserable creature? And I doubt that I am the only one by several millions. I know he's not the only one and that he represents many more of his cowardly ilk. But I would like to see him really suffer for what he and his thieves have done not just to this country but to the world.
I would like to see him made an example of so that all the rest can thank good fortune that they never met the same fate yet have to sleep uneasy every night that the Reaper's midnight knock might visit them too.
And after a particularly gruesome public trial & slow execution I would like Blair to replace Guy Fawkes on Bonfire Night so the memory of his treachery can be remembered for centuries to come.
Ok, I wish I could have done better than this just to give us all a moment's vicarious satisfaction. But it'll have to do as a small ritual expression on behalf of all those who feel as I do.
As a nation so abused by Blair, however, I believe that we should confront ourselves with the hate he has engendered in us and find ways of expressing it. If ever a man has sinned on humanity here is one. He should not be allowed to walk free, natural justice -if no other- must catch up with him soon.
If that were to be a curse, then I cast it on him. Sobeit.
Extremist liberals are the
Extremist liberals are the danger Britain faces. You can't get much more extreme than letting our women breed with negros.
Was waiting for even a touch
Was waiting for even a touch of irony in that, but nay, nay, thrice nay and yet again nay!
Doncha love these occasional gobs of unwisdom from the world's toxic brains? I know I do.