08/05/2006
Power corrupting
A disconnection has occurred; a disconnection born of deep confusion and a grasping love of power. It is happening at the top of the Labour Party and sodding up the government's ability to govern.
Governments are there to run the country. However, the current Blair government is a machine currently given over entirely to trying to run itself. It's efforts are going in entirely the wrong direction; it seves itself, not the population.
An excellent example was the recent re-shuffle; a political move designed entirely to surround the PM with loyalists - not people necessarily best qualified for their positions, note - but those most obedient, least likely to question.
Hence Jacky "nuts to bomb Iran" Straw flies unceremoniously out of the cabinet window, while Trish "best year ever" Hewitt stays lodged firmly in her seat.
It matters not one jot that Straw spent years developing a close and beneficial relationship with Condi Rice. It doesn't matter that we're right in the middle of UN procedures and discussions about Iran, (the UN Security Council meets today) and that continuity in processes like these is vital.
No; that's not important. Much more important is that Tony's worried Jack's too close to Gordon. Much more important. More important than our effective contribution to the Iran debate. Yes. So Jacky? Boot - out he goes.
Neither does it matter that Patricia Hewitt, a woman with all the interpersonal skills of a brick, has succeeded in rubbing the entire NHS up the wrong way.
It doesn't matter that she made a hash of dealing with nurses, that she couldn't face up to the truth of what's going on in the NHS, and that she insisted on telling NHS staff things they knew were simply untrue.
Much more important than this, of course, is that she does everything Tony Blair tells her. Much more important. So she stays.
John Reid is certainly an able man, but is it at all advisable to replace the MoD's top bod half way through a war? And is it advisable to shove him into a whopper of a department which is now generally regarded as being up the spout? "I say John, put down the Iraq war; here's the Home Office - WHUMP!" No. Of course it's bloody not.
In short, the PM is surrounding himself with loyalists in an attempt to cling to power. Because he is so concerned with power rather than government the country will suffer.
Not only will the speculation about when he's going to shove off continue, but the rump government he has now collected about him will become even more defensive, even more disaster-prone, ever-more eager to please, automaton, nonsense-speaking and alien.
So we can expect to see a river of very sketchy "reforms" flowing from the ministries in a febrile attempt to please. It's all about the boss. He's worried about his legacy, you see - worried about being ousted.
It's just a shame he doesn't seem very worried about us.
Yours etc.,
Spinoff.
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