'New' Labour takes a Reality Check...
I do sometimes wonder as to the bubble politicians end up living in when they take residence at Westminster. In many ways Westminster resembles some decaying third rate public school(which is actually a private school..for my foreign readers) with all the political obsessives hothoused together giving rise to some very sickly blooms...
So politicians are isolated and in some senses alienated from everyday life due to the nature of their jobs. For they are to be on message and on call twenty four hours a day, isolated from the ordinary rhythm's of everyday life and hence in some ways to everyday concerns. These factors loom ever larger for party leaders with their unique political positions as dominant males(and they are almost always males...) in the pack.
Blair has always lived a very insulated life, protected and promoted by his patrons, cloistered at Oxford very much the traditional career path of an aspiring PM. Blair has never struggled and never suffered financial disadvantage his whole life has been politics of which he has been very good at. However he lacks the raw smarts of Brown and lately has surrounded himself with the 'true believers' the Blairite ultras. This has served to further insulate Blair from wider reality and promote the self-delusion that he is actually politically popular.
Before the Iraq War this might have been true but some basic trust seems to have been breached with the British public and Blair and his inner circle seem befuddled that he is provoking such hostile reactions from ordinary Britons. So the wonks are adjusting their strategy to make Blair seem less 'presidential' and are trying to reel Brown back into the campaign after giving him the kiss off. This seems to me too little too late the public seems to have made up it's mind regarding Blair and his trustworthiness. The Blairite response most amusingly is to feature less Blair in the actual campaign, the paradoxes of politics.....Gould Blair's chief pollster is confident that this is working and that Labour will widen the gap with the newly resurgent Conservatives and who knows he may be right, but as the Chinese used to say we live in interesting times....
So politicians are isolated and in some senses alienated from everyday life due to the nature of their jobs. For they are to be on message and on call twenty four hours a day, isolated from the ordinary rhythm's of everyday life and hence in some ways to everyday concerns. These factors loom ever larger for party leaders with their unique political positions as dominant males(and they are almost always males...) in the pack.
Blair has always lived a very insulated life, protected and promoted by his patrons, cloistered at Oxford very much the traditional career path of an aspiring PM. Blair has never struggled and never suffered financial disadvantage his whole life has been politics of which he has been very good at. However he lacks the raw smarts of Brown and lately has surrounded himself with the 'true believers' the Blairite ultras. This has served to further insulate Blair from wider reality and promote the self-delusion that he is actually politically popular.
Before the Iraq War this might have been true but some basic trust seems to have been breached with the British public and Blair and his inner circle seem befuddled that he is provoking such hostile reactions from ordinary Britons. So the wonks are adjusting their strategy to make Blair seem less 'presidential' and are trying to reel Brown back into the campaign after giving him the kiss off. This seems to me too little too late the public seems to have made up it's mind regarding Blair and his trustworthiness. The Blairite response most amusingly is to feature less Blair in the actual campaign, the paradoxes of politics.....Gould Blair's chief pollster is confident that this is working and that Labour will widen the gap with the newly resurgent Conservatives and who knows he may be right, but as the Chinese used to say we live in interesting times....
posted by Beowulf | 6:05 pm
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