Blair Channeling Anakin

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 09:15:54 +0000

Reading Blair's extended answer to ChickYog's question (my emphasis):

I am quite sure, based on the experience I have had in government, you cannot solve some of these law and order problems unless you are prepared, quite profoundly, to change and rebalance the system of criminal justice so that you have more summary justice, more summary powers, more ability for quick and effective action to be taken, even if it will cross the line that most people normally think of as there in terms of civil liberties. And my view is that you can decide that you are not going to do it for civil liberty reasons, decide it, but then don’t say to the politicians and all the rest of it, you have got to deal with this problem, because you cannot deal with it in my view by the normal processes of the law, you just can’t do it. The way the world has changed means that the only, and this is why we only started to get any action on antisocial behaviour when we introduced the power to get Antisocial Behaviour Orders, summary powers for the police, and the ability to take swift action.

rang a few bells with me. It took me a while to work out what they were. I thought about examples of societies changing from ones where decisions were made with thought and care, taking multiple views into account, to ones where frustration with the time this takes leads to demands for summary action without the nicities of getting the edge cases right, and an example popped into mind:

ANAKIN: We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problem, agree what's in the best interests of all the people, and then do it.

PADMÉ: That is exactly what we do. The trouble is that people don't always agree. In fact, they hardly ever do.

ANAKIN: Then they should be made to.

PADMÉ: By whom? Who's going to make them?

ANAKIN: I don't know. Someone.

PADMÉ: You?

ANAKIN: Of course not me.

PADMÉ: But someone.

ANAKIN: Someone wise.

PADMÉ: That sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me.

ANAKIN: Well, if it works...

This is exactly what Blair is proposing. The I'm right; I know what needs to be done, and will do it no matter the casualties along the way school of thought. I'm guessing that Il Duce's commitments to targets in train punctuality is all part of this.

I realise incidentally that I'm running the risk of invoking Godwin's Law here, but consider The 14 defining Characteristics of Fascism — I'm counting 10 out of 14 at present.

Scotland's Top Hypocrite Strikes Again

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 16:28:39 +0000

Thanks to an extended flight delay this morning, I was able to listen to the excellent Radio 4 documentary on the Skye Bridge Tolls, abolished a year ago (how did I miss it?)

However, the coverage was spoiled by the outright and blatant revisionism of Brian Wilson, who claimed to have been always for the tolls. Would this be the same Brian Wilson who campaigned against them (as did the local Labour Party candidate, one Donald Munro) in advance of the 97 election, and was heard in January 98 uttering this statement:

as rapid progress as is possible must be made to reducing and removing tolls.

And who would seem to have been even more strongly against them two years earlier, if Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish (then a Tory minister) is to be believed.

But then, this is nothing new to Labour's ur-partisan attack dog (making John Reid look like a cutesy puppy by comparison), who the morning after the devolution vote was on television putting the boot into the cross party consensus to start Labour's Holyrood election campaign on the very shows designed to allow the non-Tory parties a moment of Isn't it good when we work together for the common good.

easyweb.co.uk - scum

Blair Channeling Anakin

Scotland's Top Hypocrite Strikes Again