"Blair, we are told, is an admirer of the Asquith Government, but I wonder how much he knows of it. This, after all, was a government which was prepared to take on the House of Lords, the Tory Party, a good part of the ruling class, the rich, even the monarchy, and was dependent on the fruitful relationship between a Prime Minister who in the end sided with the Left and a Chancellor (Lloyd George) who enjoyed offending almost everybody. To read the Liberal Party's rhetoric during the 1910 elections is to realise that we live in a different world. It is inconceivable that Blair or Brown would behave that way."
"I don't imagine Blair made a calculation that unless one country (i.e. Britain) took on the role of America's ally no one would be in a position to restrain America's unilateralism - though that could have been an incidental outcome. It was belief. The result is that both the old Foreign Office elites and New Labour elites have a view of America that is not shared by the rest of the population. America is widely admired, but also widely disliked; and the America whose chief ally we have become represents the America which is widely disliked. It is faith which leads the Prime Minister to argue with immense force that challenges to America's freedom and way of life are also challenges to ours - something which is simply not true, though it might well become true. "
posted by Matthew @ 3/28/2003 04:10:00 PM
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