Let Down (and hanging around)

12 years ago today Tony Blair wrestled power from the Tory party in an unprecedented electoral landslide that left the defeated party in disarray for the best part of a decade, promised change and a fresh start for everyone in the country. Somewhere along the line, it all went wrong, and I've been wondering why?

Labour have been in power for nearly half of my life, but given the way the polls are looking and Gordon Brown's sorry attempts at governing, it looks like 2009 could be the beginning of the end for the current Labour administration. If I'm honest I'm not sorry about that either. My politics is naturally left leaning, and in that sense Labour should be my first choice party, but it isn't. More than anything they just leave me feeling let down, let down by 12 years of false dawns, failed new deals and empty promises.

It all could have been so different. I'll happily admit that I was too young to vote in 1997 (by 4 years), but that doesn't mean I wasn't excited by the potential of New Labour and Tony Blair. I knew I wasn't a Tory, and I knew I found John Major dull, uncharismatic, bereft of ideas and out of touch. The promise of 'things can only get better' combined with the euphoria of that day was intoxicating- we really felt things were going to change for the better. Tony was a bewitching character, a politician the like of which I'd never seen, and an engaging personality (something I found to be true when I heard him debate in the flesh at Oasis HQ in the last general election). After all Labour had a huge majority, they could do what they liked and they were promising so much- a new kind of politics (sound familiar David Cameron fans?)- and yet they fell so far short.

There are various themes that arise from the reign of New Labour that I find symptomatic of the disappointment I feel in them, and the way they failed to capitalize on the opportunity they had;

Style over substance has to be the first one. Instead of transforming the NHS, education and social welfare they threw money at everything, installed layers and layers of bureaucracy and squandered the opportunity of a generation. Yes, things have changed on the surface, but at their core have they improved? I'm not sure they have. Take education for example. Literacy levels are up, schools have higher funding and more pupils stay on post-16 than when Blair came to power. However whether the education system has improved qualitatively I think is a different question. From what I saw on my PGCE and when I visit schools in my current post I'm inclined to think it hasn't. Teachers work their fingers to the bone, but are weighed down by paperwork, unnecessary assessment and constant red tape. The freedom of the individual teacher to express their skills and abilities in the best way for each individual class has been suppressed by the constant demand to teach to test. To quote David Cameron (who I think was quoting someone else) "constantly weighing the pig doesn't make it any heavier" It's like the government wants to micro manage every element of the services it provides, giving no freedom at all to professionals who just want to get on with their jobs,and that is to the detriment of each of those professions and the people they serve.

Secondly there was the 'special relationship' between Tony Blair and George Bush, that so perfectly illustrates how the lust for power and influence overpowered common sense and just doing the right thing in number 10. With his Stateside ally Tony saw the chance to punch above his weight as a statesman and influence global politics in a way he otherwise couldn't. The longer he stayed in number 10 the longer these characteristics came to the fore as he strove for his'legacy' to write his name in the history books, regardless of what that cost in terms of Britian's global standing and integrety. By being the lap dog of one of the most hoplessly inept Presidents in history, Tony Blair condemned this country to an illegal war, decimating our human rights record by taking part in torturous 'extraordinary rendition' and of course causing the relentless humiliation we are subjected to in Eurovision every year!

Worst of all is the way it feels like New Labour abused the trust of the British public (and me!). To start with there was Alistair Campbell and the spin machine, the introduction of top-up fees, then the WMD's and the invasion of Iraq, the David Kelly affair, the handling of the economy, the erosion of our civil liberties under the anti-terror banner and the countless personal misdemeanours of politicians who came to power partly on an anti-sleaze ticket. That's just the headline errors for me, on a deeper level New Labour have further eroded the reputation of British politicians to the point where it can really go no lower and is second only to that of bankers. The sad thing is both Blair and Brown seem so self righteous I'm not convinced either of them would see this.

That's not to say it was all bad, the minimum wage was a positive move forward, the economy was booming for a while (although we now see how shaky the foundations of this were) and the Good Friday peace accord in Northern Ireland was an amazing achievement, to name some of the positives to come out of the past 12 years.

I realise that some of this will make me sound like a closest Conservative, but I'm not. I just think New Labour have taken the idea of 'big government' to a place where it becomes a hindrance, rather than a help, for society and have failed to live up to so many of their promises. I suppose its only natural a party that has been in power as long as Labour stagnates and I just hope they don't take as long to recover from the electoral beating that is sure to come their way as the Conservatives did from '97.

Barack Obama: The Politics of Hope

It is no coincidence that Barack Obama travelled to his inauguration along the same train route that Abraham Lincoln took to his. Just as the 16th president had to restore his nation from the damage wrought by the civil war, Obama is dealing in the hopes and dreams of a divided nation, economically on it's knees and unsure of the future. After 8 years under George Bush, where America's stock has fallen dramatically on the world stage (literally and metaphorically) Obama, and all he stands for is a breath of fresh air. His rallying cry of 'yes we can' stands in stark contrast to the dark mood that currently abounds, and lies at the heart of his popularity. He has harnessed the power of hope, he has promised something different, something new, a better future.

Obama developed this agenda back at the Democratic convention in 2004 during the speech that brought him to the attention of the public at large and laid the foundation for his campaign 4 years later "Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?... I'm not talking about blind optimism here -- the almost wilful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!" It is a theme he has continued with his best-selling book 'The Audacity of Hope' and one that has got him to the most powerful office in the world.

Barack Obama is very deliberately standing in the line of Lincoln, Roosevelt, JFK and Martin Luther King, as visionaries and revolutionaries who changed the face of America, and indeed the world. He promises to unite people who previously stood divided and transform an ailing nation. In some senses this is a dangerous game, as it raises expectation levels through the roof, but then again nothing truly significant was ever achieved without the desire to see it happen. He is the first genuinely exciting political figure my generation can call their own, and if nothing else having young people excited about politics is a huge step forward in and of itself. He gives us the hope to get involved, believing we can make a difference, instead of breeding the cynicism and mistrust that Blair, Bush and the rest all engendered.

For me, the hope of Obama is that he will launch a program of progressive politics that will reconcile rather than divide, look to the needs of the people rather than pander to special interests (such as big oil or the religious right), and re-establish America's moral authority in world affairs, to say nothing of his environmental credentials compared to the blinding, dangerous ignorance of his predecessor. Obama has the potential to be one of the great Presidents, he is incredibly intelligent, very articulate and sure of his convictions. He has already changed the face of American politics, and I hope he continues along that theme.

However in amongst all of this excitement we need to be realistic. He faces the worst economic crisis for 80 years, is saddled with two difficult wars and has to undo much of the damage done by George Bush Jnr. The bottom line is Barack Obama is not the saviour of the world, but he does have the opportunity to make a positive difference. He has both congress and the senate with him, which gives him a great opportunity to drive through legislation and effect change in a meaningful way. The fact that he has promised to shut down Guantanamo Bay by executive order in his first week in power is a good start, and will hopefully be the first of many sweeping actions that do away with the worst excesses of the Bush era and replace them with something far more positive. There is a sense of new beginning, of fresh new energies brought to bear on the enormous problems of our time and it is good.

But it seems appropriate to end this post with a quote from Martin Luther King "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." There is no doubt Barack Obama is facing challenge and controversy, and how he deals with it will dictate the success or otherwise of his presidency. I just pray he can deliver on the hope he has brought into the White House, and proves to be the man of change he is seeking to be.

Gaza

I've been trying to think of a way to eloquently express my shock at the horror and futility of what Israel has been doing over the past week. I cant, so I will let this cartoon from the Guardian speak for me....

Iraq: an op ed piece

6 years after entering Iraq in a blaze of 'shock and awe' along with the rest of the so called 'coalition of the willing', the British army will be pulling out in July. They will be leaving behind them a country that is now a genuine, functioning democracy, with a army and police force, without its genocidal dictator and with a recovering infrastructure. When you look at those facts it is almost tempting to write a revisionist account of the whole bloody saga, but it is vital we do not, not yet anyway. These facts do not affect some of the huge problems that have been associated from this ill-fated endeavour right from the start

Firstly we sent our troops into harms way, based on a lie. George Bush said at the time of the invasion;
"Iraq continues to flaunt its hostilities toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade... This is a regime that agreed to international inspections — then kicked out inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world... By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes [Iran, Iraq and North Korea] pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred."
The fact that Tony Blair went along with this nonsense, in retrospect is damning. There was no genuine evidence for either claim, WMD or links to international terrorist groups. Whether you believe it was a desperate grab for oil, an attempted to finish up what his daddy started or something else entirely, the reasons put forward to the public, parliament and the UN for going to war were lies.

Secondly, far from blunting the terrorist threat (remember there were virtually no terrorists in Iraq before the invasion) this war has only heightened tension and acted as a recruiting magnet for radicalised Muslims. It is seen as the West persecuting Muslims yet again, and the disgusting actions of US troops in abu Ghraib prison only highened these suspicions and accusations. Before the invasion al-Qaeda had no foothold in Iraq, after the invasion Iraq became a stronghold for them as they took advantage of the Sunni insurgency and began operating in the country.

Finally this war diverted valuable manpower and resources away from the genuine war on terror in Afghanistan. There was no evidence at all that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, in fact Saddam, whilst hardly a pleasant dictator had very little to do with religious extremists, considering them a destabilising factor in his nominally religious state. Afghanistan (and the border with Pakistan), by contrast was a hot bed of radical Islam, breeding the kind of men that carried out terrorism all over the world before and after the invasion, not just 9/11 but bombings in Kenya, Bali, London and elsewhere. If the £5.5 billion the UK government has spent so far in Iraq (according to the Times) had been spent only in Afghanistan then it probably would have had a genuine influence in reducing the terrorist threat to the world. As it is, the invasion of Iraq has just made it worse.

So yes, things might improve for the Iraqi people in the future, and this may in the long term be a stabilising influence, but none of that changes the very dubious footing on which this war was fought, the mess that was made of the aftermath and the thousands of lives that have been lost. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is right when he says;

"There must be a fully independent public inquiry into how this was allowed to happen. The time when Brown has been able to hide behind our troops' ongoing presence in the country is coming to an end... The death and injury of hundreds of British troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians in this futile war cannot simply be swept under the carpet."

So let's have an inquiry, let's get to the bottom of this sorry saga and let's see if we cant get to the truth of it once and for all.