Impeach Blair

December 10, 2004 1:08 AM

Teflon Tony Blair is a class act as a survivor but could he seriously face impeachment proceedings from These guys? So far its only the loons and the wannabees but how long before the case is taken up by The Prince of Darkness? It looks bad because his Pants are on Fire.
posted by Cancergiggles (39 comments total)

It'll never work, but I hope it rattles a few bones in Whitehall. What with Butler (he of the masterful whitewash) tearing into him yesterday and the ongoing saga of Blunkett's private life, I can only hope for the end of this government.

Jail before ID Cards.
posted by jackiemcghee at 1:12 AM on December 10, 2004

Certainly jail after ID cards
posted by Cancergiggles at 1:26 AM on December 10, 2004

Previously discussed here.

To reiterate, in a seasonal manner, turkeys don't vote for Christmas and the Parliamentary Labour Party is still far too scarred to commit electoral hara kiri by voting through impeachment proceedings with the required majority in the Commons.

The only way in which this woud be possible would be if a hung Parliament resulted in May 2005 and Parliament was minided to venture into brave new constitutional waters. The odds of the former happening are longer than 50-1 so let's not hold our breath. The liklihood of the latter? Well, you speculation is as good as mine.

If the awkward squad think that there's merit in these allegations then proceedings in the HIgh Court for judicial review is the logical procedure. But it costs lots of money and would end in defeat at the hands of judges traditionally inclined to defer to the executive on matters of national security (See Lord Denning, ex p. Hosenball)

A question then. If one hopes for the end of the Blair adminstration does this mean one yearns for the firm smark of Tory rule. Or are we really saaying that we think that a Brown/Milburn/Whomever administration would plot a radical course to that of the great prgmatist?
posted by dmt at 2:00 AM on December 10, 2004

The report ... presents evidence that the Prime Minister deliberately distorted the intelligence assessments available to him in order to deceive the public and Parliament over the case for war, and recommends that impeachment procedures are begun against the Prime Minister for this misconduct.

this is what robin cook and claire short termed the honourable deception.

blair is an enigma. 750 000 brits took to the streets of london to protest against the britain's involvement in the war on iraq and blair survived.

i still can't figure out why blair supported gwb... clearly he knew britain faced no imminent threat from saddam hussein. (unlike america, the brits have been living with terrorism - supported and financed by americans btw - for decades and are not prone to overreact as america did.)

why he supported bush remains a mystery to me. as chirac noted, britain received nothing in return.

the MoD has backed haliburton subsidiary kellog, brown, and root to manage the construction of britain's new aircraft carriers despite the negative impact on britain's own shipyards.

he proposed eliminating the black watch regiment the same week he sent them into the sunni triangle.

and despite all of this, the british population seems more concerned about the stupid ban on fox hunting. look over here... bright shiny object... oooh. it's the same thing with blunkett. anything to distract the population.

his support within the labour party is unfathomable, so i don't see this report by a couple of academics having any effect whatsoever on teflon tony.
posted by three blind mice at 2:02 AM on December 10, 2004

Blair's support can only be based on the fact that we do not have a single conceivable replacement of any political colour. I dislike Blair, his policies, his wife, his cabinet, his party and just about everything else about him. What I cannot take away from him though, is that he is the most consummate politician of our generation. Politician is not a complimentary word.
posted by Cancergiggles at 2:29 AM on December 10, 2004

there has to be more to it cancergiggles. it's one thing that there is not a replacement - and you are certainly right about that - but that blair is able to garner support within labour to DO the things he has done cannot simply be explained by the lack of an alternative.

i do agree with you that he is an incredibly talented politician. most consummate, i'm not so sure about. in her day thatcher accomplished political goals (such as breaking the backs of the unions) that blair could never achieve.
posted by three blind mice at 2:53 AM on December 10, 2004

From the vantage point of an outsider, I can only say, that, if you want to get rid of NuLab, you Britons should vote LibDem in the next election. Do I think they can win that election? No, but they can overtake the Tories, which would produce one of two possible outcomes:
a) The LibDems become the main opposition party (after all, they are already the effective opposition), getting a chance to claim millions of votes of people who currently vote Tory because they don't believe the LibDems could actually win an election. In fact, it's the Tories in their current state who can't.
b) The Tories (and, of course, the financial interests behind them) get the point, rejuvenate the party and jettison the fruitcake right (those are free to join UKIP if they wish) and become a real opposition at last, reclaiming all those votes they have been haemorrhaging towards NuLab, LibDems over the last decade and a half as well as gaining some young votes to compensate for the not negligible amount they've lost to the Grim Reaper as well.
Of course, that means you'll be stuck with Tony for four more years anyway, but if you want a new Government, you'll first need a real Opposition. You are missing that right now.

On a different tack, I can't quite get why both Brits and Americans are so wary of national ID cards. I've always lived with them, and never felt they were excessively intrusive. On the contrary, they are quite handy for everyday paperwork. I can't say the same about the ubiquitous CCTV coverage I've encountered in Britain, though...
posted by Skeptic at 3:13 AM on December 10, 2004

not only is this a double post, it has two links to the same site and has a blatant agenda. Bad post.

(and, no, I'm not a great fan of Blair)
posted by johnny novak at 3:22 AM on December 10, 2004

three blind mice: I think Blair carries support within the Labour party partly because they owe him their jobs. From being nearly as far in the wilderness as the Tories currently are, he brought them all into power, and with a massive mandate. And perhaps the Labour party is now wary that upsetting the leadership would upset the electorate enough to tip the power balance.

Either way, I expect a leadership battle will kick off after the next Election (assuming Labour stay in power).
posted by grahamspankee at 3:31 AM on December 10, 2004

Skeptic: The wariness about ID cards (for me anyway) comes from variously:

1) the utter dishonesty with which the proposals are being sold. Blunkett has variously claimed that they will fight terrorism, prevent illegal immigrants and may or may not be mandatory.

2) the calamitous UK government track record of failing to meet the stated budget and timescale of similarly sized IT projects

3) they want to do it using a huge centralised database which will never be as secure as is claimed and provides a target for state-sanctioned abuses of power or general other villainy

I can see the arguments for ID cards, but I think the existing proposal represents a slight restriction of my civil liberties without delivering the claimed benefits or value for money. I know ID cards are used successfully in other countries, I just think YMMV.
posted by grahamspankee at 3:46 AM on December 10, 2004

johnny novak- no, you are completely wrong. There is no agenda - blatant or otherwise - unless admitting that I cannot see a resolution to our current political wilderness counts as one.
What exactly is it that makes it a bad post (other than my mistake of there being 2 links) when clearly people wish to express their thoughts?
posted by Cancergiggles at 3:56 AM on December 10, 2004

As someone who's lived in a few countries and recently washed up on UK shores I am kind of amazed at the lack of opposition to Blair. Everyone seems to dislike him and his party and the majority of their policies but no-one seems to support actual change. I've even had several people tell me that he's way better than Thatcher, as if she was the only alternative. 'Tis odd. The Lib Dems seem to be a well-supported party with a good record at the local level but are not taken seriously. It must be very frustrating for them.

And the Blunkett thing (is it even a scandal?)? Incredible. If it was in a movie it would seem ludicrously far-fetched so it's doubly entertaining in real life.
posted by fshgrl at 3:57 AM on December 10, 2004

Offtopic:

johnny novak, with all due respect, pointing out this is a double post should not be a mefi badge of honor (as it seems to be), but rather a useful contribution.

in my view, it would be helpful it you a) provided a link to the previous post and, b) made a suggestion to the poster how to avoid committing this unforgivable crime again.

for example my quick search on the google metafilter page on the terms impeach blair doesn't seem to locate this url.

simply saying "bad post" won't necessarily result in good posts.

your comment that there were two identical links in the FPP was, however, a helpful and useful contribution.
posted by three blind mice at 4:00 AM on December 10, 2004

Feh. No, the impeachment is meaningless. No, there is no plausible replacement for Blair (it being quite clear that Brown will never, ever become PM), either from within his own party or from the opposition. And the trouble is, for most of the progressive opponents of the Blair government (anti-war, pro-civil liberties, etc.) it is unpleasantly clear that the Labour government is still the best choice they have.

The next election will possibly see a targetted effort to remove the most Blairite MPs - in order to reduce the majority and balance up the wings of the party, an attempt to force more consensus government - rather than an effort to remove the government wholesale. Tricky, but feasible. "Vote Brown", as it were.

(Also, for reference, within British politics, the phrase "Prince of Darkness" generally refers to Peter Mandelson, not Michael "something of the night" Howard.)
posted by flashboy at 4:10 AM on December 10, 2004

You are absolutely correct flashboy and I apologise. The mistake must be due to my Michael Howard / Ozzie Osborne mental block. Frightening.
posted by Cancergiggles at 4:16 AM on December 10, 2004

grahamspankee: I think Blair carries support within the Labour party partly because they owe him their jobs. From being nearly as far in the wilderness as the Tories currently are, he brought them all into power, and with a massive mandate. And perhaps the Labour party is now wary that upsetting the leadership would upset the electorate enough to tip the power balance.

that's what i hear in the pubs, but few people seem to be able to explain exactly what blair did other than not be john major.

fshgrl, as for blunkett it fills up the newspapers. the brits love a bit of naughty and since it's a government official even the london times can write about it. wouldn't surprise me if blair is fixing him up: for a blind man he certainly seems to have affairs with reasonably attractive women.
posted by three blind mice at 4:21 AM on December 10, 2004

Blair survives because business likes New Labour.

That and the fact that Labour is no longer a left-leaning party, usurping the Conservatives political mandate of centralisation, dictation and privatisation and leaving no actual traditional opposition. New Labour has become the Conservative party with an iPod.

The Liberal Democrats, the remaining effective opposition, have been a tepid power in recent decades because they have no traditional social base, neither the working/lower nor the middle/upper classes, and suffered for that as the waves of cash for influence swept into parliament in the '70s. They had no reliable base, so they had no reliable income, so they fell behind in marketing themselves, so they remained obscure, so they had no reliable base...

I think a hung Parliament would do the country a significant amount of damage in terms of lost momentum, but a staggering amount of good in terms of bringing three separate parties into genuine contention for power and thus forcing political negotiation and compromise.


That was a broadcast by the Soapbox party of MetaFilter, UK.
posted by NinjaPirate at 4:24 AM on December 10, 2004

three blind mice

in this community double posts are bad and if you'd actually read this thread you would have seen dmt's link to it earlier on.

cancergiggles,

"I dislike Blair, his policies, his wife, his cabinet, his party and just about everything else about him."

No agenda, hmm?
posted by johnny novak at 4:25 AM on December 10, 2004

Bah, I forgot to tar New Labour with a weak "neo-Conservatives" pun.
But there you go, I'll just flick ash on them as they pass.
posted by NinjaPirate at 4:29 AM on December 10, 2004

johnny novak. No, none. You can substitute Brown, Howard, Kennedy, Kilroy Silk, Salmond (where wives apply) and I would be happy with the statement. What agenda are you reading into this?
posted by Cancergiggles at 4:31 AM on December 10, 2004

three blind mice: few people seem to be able to explain exactly what blair did other than not be john major.

I should say not being John Major was about half of it. Everyone was fed up with the Tories by that point, and there was a lot of banging on about sleaze in government (presumably orchestrated by Mandelson).

The other half was not being Neil Kinnock, the previous Labour leader, who seemed to have attracted the "unelectable" tag that did for Howard Dean.

But yeah, you're right, there wasn't anything particularly special about Blair compared to any of the others, apart his ability to appear genuine and sincere.
posted by grahamspankee at 4:32 AM on December 10, 2004

johnny novak. I apologise that I didn't read every single post back to the original one on August 26th thus avoiding a double post and in searching "impeach blair" found nothing. Criminally I failed to add "Tony" to the search but I didn't try "Mr" or "Charles" or "Lynton" either.
posted by Cancergiggles at 4:46 AM on December 10, 2004

cancergiggles,

search harder then, the onus is on you as the poster not to double post.
posted by johnny novak at 4:57 AM on December 10, 2004

grahamspankee, you're forgetting about John Smith who died in 1994. By all accounts, he was the best PM Britain never had. Certainly he was no charlatan on the scale of Blair.

Cancergiggles, johnny novak: get a room.
posted by jackiemcghee at 5:04 AM on December 10, 2004

So far, a lot of people seem to want to make interesting comments on this double post. Perhaps they should all be admonished by you and the MeFi police for not searching out the first post on the matter.

From the guidelines "A good post to MetaFilter is something that meets the following criteria: most people haven't seen it before, there is something interesting about the content on the page, and it might warrant discussion from others."

I don't believe that Matt says anything about searching hard because the onus is on you as the poster not to double post.

For your information he does however say
And lastly, don't troll (quick definition: posting purposely inflammatory things for the sole purpose of baiting others to argue the points until blue in the face - basically people do this for kicks, to destroy conversations and communities, for the hell of it).
posted by Cancergiggles at 5:13 AM on December 10, 2004

grahamspankee - thanks. forgot about kinnock. that adds more color to the picture, but i still get the feeling he's got compromising photos somewhere.

johnny novak: you got me. i didn't click on all the links - shame on me.

*takes cross from cancergiggles, but refuses to wear his doubleposting crown of thorns.*
posted by three blind mice at 5:14 AM on December 10, 2004

you got me cancergiggles, I've only been here for three and a half years and I spent that whole time thinking double posts were bad and that checking links, grammar and points of fact before one made an FPP was the right thing to do. How wrong I've been.

And whilst that makes me feel bad, the worst thing is that it took a newbie to point out the error of my ways.

I feel such a fool.
posted by johnny novak at 6:21 AM on December 10, 2004

grahamspankee: The concerns about a centralised database are understandable, but a bit misplaced in this case. It seems to me that what you should rather fight against unauthorised data transfer and for serious firewalls between the independent authority which would run this database and other institutions. You also happen to have a good instrument in this fight, which is the European Data Privacy Directive, a product of the (historically all too justified) German public distrust of centralised databases, which however hasn't prevented Germans from taking ID cards for granted. Heh, but Gawd prevents that you Brits take lessons from Germany!

threeblindmice: Another important reason for Blair becoming and staying PM is the constant (I would never say unconditional!) support of Rupert Murdoch. Of course, Murdoch is a wily old fox, who must have realised that a party like the Tories, where the membership has an average age of something like 67, would ultimately lose power, so he transferred his support to a Labour In Name Only, which he and Tony have been extremely succesful in bringing into line with Murdoch's interests...
posted by Skeptic at 6:41 AM on December 10, 2004

cancergiggles, take (the little) that johnny novak said that was right (and useful) and ignore the (condescending and patronizing) rest.

some people can only lift themselves up by knocking others down.

you've done your good deed for the day giggles.

try again.
posted by three blind mice at 6:49 AM on December 10, 2004

To follow up Skeptic's point, From the launch day of the Scottish edition of the Sun (garbage tabloid for those not in the know) it supported the SNP (Scottish National Party) with all sorts of crap like giving out car window stickers paraphrasing Flower of Scotland: "Rise and Be a Nation Again". Then guess what happens, the May 1997 election approaches and the Scottish Sun dumps the SNP and attaches itself, limpet-like to New Labour. Otherwise, how could they claim the credit for getting NL elected?

Frankly, being a nationalist, I was glad they switched sides. I can only hope they never return.
posted by jackiemcghee at 8:21 AM on December 10, 2004

You're right Skeptic: good laws about unauthorised data use and good firewall implementation should allay some of my fears of a centralised database. But, I don't trust the government not to run around the laws for e.g. the "war on terror", and even the best sysadmins misconfigure firewalls.

Better to prevent abuse by not creating the thing in the first place than to try to patch the holes. My (admittedly limited) understanding of crypto techniques leads me to believe that it should be possible to have a card that proves I am who I say I am in a manner certified by the UK government without needing a centralised database.

I fear I'm fighting a losing battle, but I'd be interested in reading some more about Germany's recent experiences with ID cards.
posted by grahamspankee at 8:22 AM on December 10, 2004

he proposed eliminating the black watch regiment the same week he sent them into the sunni triangle.

This is nonsense. The merging of the Scottish regiments has been on the cards for ages.
posted by the cuban at 8:52 AM on December 10, 2004

From what I understand the UK ID database would contain DNA and retina scan information though, making it pretty different from the German system.
posted by fshgrl at 9:58 AM on December 10, 2004

well cuban, it may have been discussed "for ages" but it was reported by the BBC on Dec. 7th that final decision now rests with Geoff Hoon, who is expected to make an announcement in Parliament next week.

on dec. 5th, 2004 the london times reported that "THE QUEEN has expressed royal family concern at threats to axe the Black Watch. In a private note to campaigners fighting to save the regiment, she wrote that if the Queen Mother “were alive she would never have let this happen”."

i don't know if you get the times in havana, but here in london there was a lot of discontent over the timing of these events.
posted by three blind mice at 10:01 AM on December 10, 2004

point taken three blind mice. I guess its a case of "never wrestle with a pig - you both get dirty but the pig likes it."
posted by Cancergiggles at 10:50 AM on December 10, 2004

3 blind mice - From your link of Dec 7th -ministers announced the reorganisation in July

Like I said, it's been a news item in Scotland for a while.

Can you see how saying (Blair) proposed eliminating the black watch regiment the same week he sent them into the sunni triangle is misleading?
posted by the cuban at 2:02 PM on December 10, 2004

why he supported bush remains a mystery to me.

They pray together. God help us all.

Among Mansfield's revelations is his insistence that Bush and Tony Blair have prayed together at a private meeting at Camp David. Blair has previously denied this. Mansfield, however, says that, while there were no witnesses, aides were left in little doubt as to what had happened. He told The Observer: 'There is no question they have shared scripture and prayed together.'

posted by meehawl at 8:40 PM on December 10, 2004

Oh well, I'm posting just to make up the numbers and show some support for Blair. Blair is the best we've had since Thatcher. I fear a Lib Dem government (or a non-"New" Labour government) would reintroduce red tape and send us back to the '70s as far as taxes and bureaucracy are concerned. Blair's government has been great for business, I hope he stays. I could care less about the wars, Blunkett's wandering penis, and so on.. what I care about is the shrapnel in my pocket.
posted by wackybrit at 9:42 PM on December 11, 2004

Blair is the best we've had since Thatcher

Faint praise indeed.
posted by the cuban at 7:52 AM on December 12, 2004