God is our co-pilot
Saturday, March 04, 2006

If this was anything to do with trying to appeal to the electorate, he wouldn't be so excruciatingly honest.

That's Stephen Pound MP, speaking about Tony Blair's latest only-God-can-judge-me gambit, inadvertently writing New Labour's epitaph. I don't think I've seen the mendacity, the arrogance, and the fear of the truth that is the New Labour project encapsulated so perfectly. It's elegant in its simplicity.

And that it should come from as loyal a Blairite as Pound is the big plump cherry on the top. Write that quote down and put it in your pocket. The next time Tony Blair makes an appeal on any subject ("Look, I simply believe it's the right thing to do") whether it be Iraq, Iran, education reform, new nuclear weapons, even that the sun came up this morning, take the piece of paper out and read it.

So, Blair said:

In the end, there is a judgement that, I think if you have faith about these things, you realise that judgement is made by other people... and if you believe in God, it's made by God as well.

Is the Prime Minister briefing against God here? Sharing the blame? That's one for the lobby correspondents. I can see Nick Robinson on the Ten O'clock News:

I've been told privately tonight that while God still has the the Prime Minister's full confidence, Our Lord isn't out of the woods yet. Backbenchers are calling for God to go.

The problem with involving God in the decision-making process on matters of war is that he's an unelected official. I mean, aren't there constitutional ramifications here? He's not even a government minister like Lords Falconer, Adonis and Drayson. He's, at best, a special adviser with too much power.

As much as he should be pelted and mocked for yet another sweaty, weaselly attempt at wriggling from, shall we say, temporal accountability, I do have a nagging sympathy for Blair. A person so steeped in blood and horror would frantically search for even the slimmest shot at forgiveness and redemption or else surely go mad, wouldn't they? I wonder if, deep down, if he's truly frightened of what might happen to him when he's finally gathered unto justice. I hope so.

(Maybe we could persuade a now idle Fathers 4 Justice activist to sneak into Downing Street and jump out of Blair's wardrobe in the middle of the night dressed as the Devil.)

No longer having to face the court of the electorate, it seems the Prime Minister now deems only one authority now fit to judge him. Maybe he pictures himself as David Niven in A Matter of Life and Death, raffishly winning a second chance. Or has he been reading his Dostoyevsky and, after committing such terrible crimes, now sees himself as the reborn Raskolnikov:

He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering. But that is the beginning of a new story – the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.

Draw a line. Move on.


11 Comments:

On March 04, 2006 10:25 AM, Blogger quarsan said...

judgement is made by other people

now that's real leadership!  


On March 04, 2006 10:35 AM, Anonymous redpesto said...

Justin - the other weird thing aboiut Pound's (poor) defence of Blair was his comment to Cristina Odone along the lines of 'those of our religion'. I know Odone is a Catholic - but is Pound? And how can Pound claim Blair is 'one of us'? He's married to a Catholic, and I'm sure he'll become one as soon as he's shot of politics, but he's not a practicing Catholic.

Great post, by the way. I presume Blair's next project is to modernise Heaven, presumably there is a third way between Heaven and Hell (well, there was, but the Pope's just abolished Limbo)  


On March 04, 2006 2:55 PM, Anonymous Doughnut said...

redpesto: yes, Pound is a member of the godnuts. He is a roman catholic laypreacher. He also has links with Iraqi christian groups. You will note that most advancing members of new labour (as Tessa Jowell was) are godnuts.  


On March 04, 2006 7:13 PM, Blogger Justin said...

I have to say that I'm worried not at all by "godnuts" running the country - although it would be nice if they stuck a little closer to the tenets of their faiths. I'm softening on my athiesm and happy to admit that religion has inspired great and beautiful things - Bach's Christmas Oratoria, the Sistine Chapel, the Askari Mosque. It's just that Tony Blair isn't one of them.

Outward appearances would dictate that Blair is guided by his faith in no way whatsoever in the day-to-day business of his premiership - why else is he not condemning Guantanamo or rendition in moral terms? He's a pragmatist first and a Christian distant second.

In this instance with Parkinson, he's trying to have his cake and eat it - he admits his faith is a large element of how he does business but is coy ("I don't want to get into that") when it comes to the mechanics of that faith, ie. prayer. He's embarrassed by his fig leaf.  


On March 04, 2006 7:20 PM, Blogger Rachel said...

I thought history was going to be his judge? Now it's God. History must have already judged him and said he's a mendacious arrogant twat, then.  


On March 04, 2006 8:58 PM, Blogger Friendly Fire said...

What a woeful state of affairs in British Politics.

God is my Judge.

Blair is no different from the Fundamental islamists who claim Allah as their judge.

Endgame Fireworks soon.  


On March 05, 2006 6:29 PM, Anonymous Doughnut said...

Justin, it worries me deeply that a Christian cohort is running the country. These people are supposed to make the myths, not believe the nonsense. As Seneca said, 'Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful'. It worries me when the Home Office is trying to impose a Christian morality on the justice system, when the Minister of Education, a supernumerary of Opus Dei is increasing the number of religious schools, including those that teach Creationism. It worries me that New Labour is promoting deeply religious people to key positions in government, the civil service and quangos. It worries me that powerful religious lobby groups such as the CSM are operating behind the scenes in parliament.

Which tenets would you like Blair to adhere to, exactly? Exterminating homosexuals? Sacrifice? Faiths are pretty pick and mix when it comes to tenets.

Religion is harmful - it enslaves the mind and promotes motivated cognition. It enables Tony to believe what he wants to believe and justify his actions based on a word from an imaginary friend. Blair is a ruthless, deeply religious man and I think it is likely his belief permeates his every thought. His attack on civil liberties, the justice system, parliamentary democracy, the health service, education, international law, his contribution to the manslaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians does not seem to suggest a highly developed moral sense to me. The Enlightenment seems to have passed these people by.

As to your softening on atheism, well you are either an atheist or you are not. There are no half measures. I fail to see how a few stained glass windows and church warbles in any way balances the harm that religion causes to society.  


On March 05, 2006 6:50 PM, Anonymous Irie said...

Doughnut - "you are either an atheist or you are not. There are no half measures"

John Stuart Mill - "Those who first broke the yoke of what called itself the Universal church were in general as little willing to permit difference of religious opinion as that Church itself"

doughnut - you are a religious fundamentalist!  


On March 05, 2006 8:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"doughnut - you are a religious fundamentalist!"

On the contrary, I have no religion at all. Atheism is not a religion, it is absence of religion. As some wag said "If atheism is a religion, then is my not collecting stamps a hobby?"  


On March 07, 2006 3:49 AM, Blogger edjog said...

I'm pretty sure i'd have got longer inside than i did, if i'd claimed that the judgement of God was of somehow any importance, or indeed relevance, when mine was about to be handed down to me by the legally constituted authority set there for that purpose. I too hope Tony truly suffers, Justin. Found wanting, in my book: fucking lick-spittle lacky scum that he is.  


On March 08, 2006 9:08 PM, Blogger Erika said...

This is just further evidence that Blair needs to distance himself from Bush now. All that God mumbo-jumbo is starting to rub off on him.  


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