At Large
The Trial of Tony Blair
A teleplay with the mental atmosphere of Orwell’s “Two-Minute Hate.” And wouldn’t its makers love to get their mitts on George W. Bush.
First, a couple of credentials: I am immodest enough to think that few people have a longer record than I of attacking former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government.
My book Blair’s Britain was begun in Blair’s salad days a few weeks after he took power in Britain in 1997. It was published in 1999, when he still dominated British political and cultural life, and was selected as a Book of the Year in the London Spectator. This was when the religious correspondent of my local paper was gushing ludicrously that “Secular leaders become moral and spiritual leaders, challenging the role of the churches. In Britain, for example, Prime Minister Tony Blair, has emerged as the country’s moral and spiritual leader…” I said then that New Labour threatened to be not the least but the most dangerously radical of governments.
Blair’s Britain was singled out for praise — a gem in my collection of cuttings! — by my journalistic hero Peter Simple in the Daily Telegraph, and Professor Antony Flew in the introduction to Standardbearers: British Roots of the New Right, lamented that it had not been available earlier. It sold out quickly but for some reason was not reprinted.
Since then I have written frequently on British politics and culture-wars in this magazine and elsewhere. One of my main arguments has been that New Labour under Blair, apart from incompetence and inconsistency in policies, has in innumerable ways led, or at the very least condoned, the degradation and hollowing-out of British institutions, the lowering and coarsening of British culture and the general triumph of the Gramscian Left. There has been permissiveness and sleaze (including, we have now discovered, the apparent corruption of the House of Lords), coupled with the Draconian enforcement of political correctness and Nanny-Statery. Taxation policies have been designed to destroy traditional families. New Labour’s general reversion to doctrinaire socialism and class-warfare was a complete betrayal of the overt and implied promises on which it was elected of a managerialist, market-friendly, post-ideological “big-tent” party: that proved a lie immeasurably greater and more far-reaching than any involving the decision to go to war in Iraq. I could mention more. And all that before the current economic downturn.
I write this not only to blow my own trumpet but also to emphasize that I am not a person exactly prejudiced in Blair’s favor. I turned on the recent teleplay The Trial of Tony Blair (well, it’s been around in Britain for a while but has just got to this part of the world) with some anticipation.
In fact, it is a disagreeable piece of work for a number of reasons. It attacks Blair from the left not for the almost innumerable things he got wrong but for almost the only big thing that he got right and showed real courage over: the need to stand by America in the war on terrorism. The whole thing driving its hatred is the assumption that Blair was an American puppet (“Poodle” has generally been the term used, far beyond the point of cliché).
Further, it does this with both childishness and the grossest artistic crudity and a personal savagery that seems somehow disgusting even to me. It has been widely advertised as a “sharp satire.” That is one thing it certainly isn’t. Sharp satire is what you get from the likes of Tom Stoppard, with a genuine clash of ideas and argument, not to mention wit. Even Bernard Shaw gave his bad characters good lines. The Trial of Tony Blair, however, is just crude venom, with what is really an anti-American agenda, very much in the line of all those British lefty rantings against Margaret Thatcher. It looks like a revival of the Leninist technique known as “animalization of the enemy.” I think there is a good chance that such a play would simply not have found a producer a few years ago, not because of its politics but because of its forensic infantilism.
Hardly a cliché is left undeployed. Blair is shown haunted by the ghosts of dead Iraqi children (Saddam Hussein’s and the Taliban’s victims somehow fail to make an appearance). The Americans are fatuous and hypocritical swine who abandon the deluded Blair the moment he ceases to be of use to them. While Blair is attacked for sending British troops to Iraq, there is no mention of one of the real indictments that could be made: that is, sending them with inadequate equipment and as part of a force whose whole ethos he and those around him had treated with indifference and contempt. Blair is shown raving that the overthrow of Saddam was a good thing, but he is plainly intended to be regarded as going mad as he says it. It is taken for granted as a self-evident truth that the invasion of Iraq was simply crazed war-mongering by the U.S. that no decent or sane person could have supported.
Blair is gleefully shown being ridiculed by his publisher over a paranoid and unsaleable book of memoirs, facing financial ruin, being betrayed by (and betraying) Gordon Brown, sneered at and abandoned by his wife, being arrested for war-crimes, finger-printed, swabbed for DNA while being ridiculed by a policeman over the number of Iraqis he has killed, and shouted at by a magistrate in court at an extradition hearing (highly unlikely behavior towards an ex-Prime Minister). He is locked in a cell, suffers a heart attack, and is forced to lie in a hospital bed in the proximity of excrement, is then mocked and ridiculed by Gordon Brown again, and finally deported as a prisoner to Europe to face trial in the International Criminal Court — the film-makers plainly regret that because the U.S. has not recognized the ICC George Bush can’t be there beside him.
When he is summoned to the American Embassy someone mockingly suggests it is because the Americans want to make him President. He is shown as taking this seriously and replying that it is impossible because he is not an American citizen. All this is so over the top that a bare recapitulation of it sounds farcical — in fact some sort of successful farce could have been written along these lines — but it is all done with that kind of leftist earnestness that is entirely devoid of humor, subtlety, or even self-awareness. I have never seen anything so redolent of George Orwell’s “Two-Minute Hate” in 1984. There is a mental atmosphere of Stalinism or Chinese literature in its Maoist days about it. Mark you, while there is no doubt you are meant to end the play hating Blair, it is dubious that this is the effect such overkill actually achieves. I can imagine a subtler piece being more effective by far, and — Heaven knows! — there is more than enough that Blair could be legitimately attacked on.
And yet, in a way, there is a kind of poetic justice in this, though not of the kind that the makers of the play would have had in mind. I mentioned above the coarsening and lowering of British cultural standards under New Labour and the way the Gramscian Left has been given its head. In the sheer crudity of its viciousness this play is one of Blair’s, and New Labour’s, authentic children.
About the Author
Hal G.P. Colebatch’s “Immram,” Counterstrike, is being published by Australian publisher Imaginites.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (23) | Leave a comment
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Gill O'Teen| 2.2.09 @ 10:37AM
Wonderful! Now if I can just download this masterpiece's script into my word processor, revise it slightly to make George W. the central character, with sell-out shows in San Francisco, Chicago and Manhattan, I'll be able to salvage a retirement after all.
Vern Crisler| 2.2.09 @ 1:15PM
Wow, two great essays in one day, one by Murchison and one by Colebatch. Almost gets me over my funk about the Cardinal's loss.
BlairSupporter | 2.2.09 @ 2:28PM
I haven't read your book, and I am sure if The Spectator praises it it is a worthy read(!?)
But if the above is anything to go by, you seem to have got a lot of things wrong about Blair. To describe his leadership as of the 'Gramscian Left' is actually quite laughable.
"Left" of any sort, he personally never was. Because he was so un-ideologically rooted he appealed across the board and broke all Labour's records to be elected three times. (He should still be in place in his third victory term.)
The LEFT hate him - and this nonsense - "Trial of Tony Blair" is typical of the lies and hatred of such people. Disillusioned, twisted, bitter little anti-Americans.
Blair actually moved his party to the right of centre to the extent that the present Conservative party has adopted HIS policies almost wholesale. They STILL have nothing new to offer.
Meanwhile Brown, who pretended he was different, but wasn't in reality, is continuing Blair's policies. WHY? Because Blair was right (mostly).
I was never a Labour supporter, but I always admired Mr Blair and particularly his decision to support the USA in its fight against international terrorism. The more people castigated him, the more I supported him. Especially when his own party tried to dump him a year after he won the 3rd election for them.
You need to understand the background to the Blair/Brown relationship to understand why some of the more objectionable policies were brought in or continued. (I don't agree with him on everything, btw!) And you need to understand that Britain and Europe are both more "liberal" than America, and less attached to religious tenets such as anti-stem-cell research, anti-abortion, anti-gay rights etc. Blair was always in tune with the times.
The coarsening of society did NOT arrive with Blair. Nor did the immigration issues. The Conservatives had laid down the foundations for much of this in their 18 year tenure. And when Blair came to power he had to balance the right & left of his party and ditto the country.
The civil/human rights lobbyists also had an inestimably bad influence on policy and the law.
He truly believed the country was under attack (and still does) from both within and without, but was fought tooth and nail by the liberty-loving Left who now fail to understand the threat from Islmacism (my word to differentiate Islamists from the nasty sort).
The laws which are described as 'heavy-handed' have never ONCE been noticed by me! I felt free and protected with Blair around. Less so now.
Back to that film. It was a dreadful piece of work.
It was patent rubbish. Blair would never have reacted in the way suggested. He says on the Iraq decision, “I’m not haunted by it, but of course I reflect on it, and am troubled by it, and feel a great sense of responsibility for it. Of course I do.”
http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/tony-blair-wide-ranging-interview-times-with-pictures/
Tony Blair got most things RIGHT actually.
That's why the Left AND Right can't stand him. He left nothing more for either side to do. The Conservatives have adopted nearly all his policies, as has Brown, after pretending to the Left of his party that he wouldn't.
Blair was a great Prime Minister.
As for the economy - Brown ran the economy jealously hanging onto almost complete control of the purse strings. He famously refused to inform Blair of his spending plans until he announced them in the annual budget. Brown was frequently a brake on Blair's reforming instincts, especially towards the free market and business, in order to ingratiate himself to the Left. He was the one who stopped Blair's moves into the euro and stopped him merging or at least making a coalition with the 3rd party - the Liberal Democrats. Blair had spoken secretly to Paddy Ashdown, the Lib Dem leader for almost 5 years 1994-1999. Even though he had won in 1997 with an historical landslide he wanted to bring the centrist (then) Lib-Dems into the fold in order to combine against the vacuous Tories.
There is much more about his history at my site if you're interested.
Some of us miss him tremendously.
Btw, on the Iraq elections and its increasing stability, what do we hear from the British press? Almost zilch. They helped destroy Blair and now they are attempting to write history.
Not if I can help it!
BlairSupporter | 2.2.09 @ 2:37PM
P.S. to the above:
I meant to write "Islamicism" in differentiation to "Islamism".
I coined this word to try to leave the words "Islamism/Islamists" with genuine non-terror inclined Muslims.
http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/islamists-or-islamicists-the-language-of-islam/
Not sure why I'm trying to make this separation for them. Perhaps because I still await with bated breath genuine Islam trying to explain to their blood-thirsty brethren that they have misread the koran.
J. Davis| 2.2.09 @ 6:52PM
That movie sucks big time as most liberal junk does. Saddam must have stuffed many pocketbooks to enjoy the indulgence of the likes of Michael Moore and the director of that sorry excuse for a teleplay.
BlairSupporter, your country has become a politically correct nightmare, a haven for islamonazis, and a dump for every dreg of the earth. But you'll be forgiven for having sided with us. At least you're not frenchies!
Kevin Dunn| 2.2.09 @ 9:51PM
"BlairSupporter," Blair made Labour electable (unfortunately) by repackaging it as "New Labour." But the fact remains, as J. Davies says, that under New Labour Britain has become a politically-correct nightmare. and in addition is plagued by all manner of government and systemic failures. The outright socialism of the post-war Attlee Government seems somehow almost healthy and honest by comparison. This has happened mostly on Blair's watch, and if he did not actually support it he condoned it. Let me give one example of extreme political correctness: Stockport College in Manchester made it a sacking offence for staff and students to use politically-incorrect phrases like "Lady," "Gentleman," and "Normal Couple." This was not the Prime Minister's doing but the Prime Minister could have stopped this vicious imbecility with a telephone call. He didn't. A Christian lady, working in a government authority, was sacked from her job for wearing a tiny crucifix round her neck. Did Blair intervene to stop this anti-Christian discrimination? No way! These things may sound trivial but they add up. More and more police forces, led by politically-correct appointees, are enforcing not the law but attitudes and values. Patriotic feelings and institutions are attacked in the name of "celebrating diverity." Left-controlled councils bannedflying the British flag and Blair did nothing. Blair gave a knighthood to the drug-culture icon Mick Jagger and had other drug-culture musicians as guests to Downing Street, presumably to show how cool he was, and then wondered why Britain has a drug-problem. The Public Sector, which Margaret Thatcher had succeeded in greatly reducing, exploded. Its employees, with their inflation-proof pensions and early retirement schemes, are now a privileged class, just exactly as Evelyn Waugh predicted socialism in Britain would create a two-class State of proletariat and officials. Yes, Blair got the big thing right - preserving the US alliance and committing troops to the War on Terror, and he deserves credit for that. Further, since the London tube bombing Britain has not had a serious terrorist outrage, suggesting the security services are functioning effectively. But how did the rest go so wrong?
Charles Martel| 2.3.09 @ 3:11AM
"...shouted at by a magistrate in court..."
How appropriate then that this review appears in TAS Online on the same day as James Bowman's review of Valkyrie. And how unsurprising that the rabid Left's notion of justice should so closely parallel that of Nazi Germany.
+++
rose gentle| 2.3.09 @ 11:13AM
people have to remember how tony blair put our troops into irqa womd ? ye wright and he did put our troops into iraq with out the wright
equipment , hope this war honts this man
Len Crane| 2.5.09 @ 5:20AM
Kevin Dunn and Hal G. P. Colebatch are the same person. I leave it to others to judge the morality of the former publicly pretending to be a different individual from the latter.
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