The Blair Presidency Facade

Much has been made in recent days about the ’snubbing’ of Tony Blair as European President in favour of the relatively unknown Belgian, Herman Van Rompuy. The reasons for the apparent snub depend largely on the newspaper of preference with the Guardian this morning favouring the story that as Blair had apparently recommended Gordon Brown ‘drop’ the campaign weeks ago, it once again highlighted Brown’s incompetence and lack of political judgment.

For the Times, the story was possibly a little more straightforward:

Gordon Brown joined the seven other European socialist group leaders in backing Mr Van Rompuy and Lady Ashton after accepting that there was too little support for Mr Blair to be president.

Downing Street’s U-turn was a humiliating snub to Mr Blair, Mr Brown’s predecessor, who had hoped to take the plum role, but was opposed by key EU leaders who feared he would be too presidential.

For the Times then, it was a Euro-fear of Blair’s ego rather than anything else.

Having just returned from Brussels and the European Parliament, the story and reporting on the other side of the Channel is much different. Having spoken to a number of informed individuals, they stated that the only place in Europe where the Blair ’story’ is still news is in the UK. The rest of Europe had rarely – if ever – considered Blair a viable option for the Presidency. As ever, the European view was that this was another example of Britain’s own sense of self-importance. As one person suggested, it’s a construction of the British media: if they hadn’t constructed this story, who in Britain would care about the European presidency?

Fair point, but for me it reminded me of the World Cup. As with every other World Cup in living memory, so next year’s finals in South Africa will be no different. In Britain, the media and the general public will whip themselves up into a hysteria about how we are capable of winning the competition. Elsewhere, England will be given as much hope as indeed South Korea or Egypt (i.e. none).

The view from inside is always different from the view from the outside. I just think that sometimes Britain forgets – or even doesn’t care – about the outside view.

Everything on this site by Chris Allen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. www.chris-allen.co.uk.

It would be crass to say don’t vote BNP (but I hope you don’t)

As the Labour Party goes into meltdown and the end of Gordon Brown’s tenure at number 10 seems to be coming to its timely climax, the country go to the polls today to vote in European and local elections. When the results of the European elections are announced, much of the focus will be on Labour’s share of the vote and the impact this has on Brown’s demise. But what about the number of votes picked up by the BNP?

According to the Institute of Community Cohesion (iCoCo), support for far right parties such as the British National Party (BNP) is smaller in the UK than in other parts of Europe. But following its success in winning a seat on the Greater London Assembly (GLA) last year, the party now has strong hopes of winning seats in Europe.

Britain’s got Gordon but he’s got no Talent…

My politics has always been rooted in the belief that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things, given the right support and encouragement…Most of all I want to help the Labour Party to reconnect with the British people, to remind them that our values are their values, that their hopes and dreams are ours too.

These are some of the words from Hazel Blears’ resignation statement from the Cabinet. Just yesterday, the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced that she too would be stepping down from her role and would be leaving politics at the next election. In the past few weeks, allegations about the expenses of a whole raft of MPs including Geoff Hoon, Alistair Darling, Shahid Malik and numerous others have rocked the Labour Party to its core.

“No Reward for Failure”: Brown, the Banks and ‘Secret’ Bonuses

The Times report that the Royal Bank of Scotland are planning to pay millions in bonuses to senior executives despite analysts suggesting that the company will report a record annual loss, beating the £15bn loss posted by Vodafone in 2006.

By next month, the Royal Bank of Scotland is set to be 70% owned by the Government.

The Daily Mail report that Northern Rock are planning to pay ’secret’ bonuses to senior managers and executives.

Northern Rock were loaned £3bn by the Bank of England in September 2007. It is estimated that the company currently owes the taxpayer approximately £26bn.

“British Jobs for British Workers”: Fuel for the BNP’s Fire

As impromptu industrial action breaks out across the country, could the underlying more insidious message in Gordon Brown’s “British Jobs for British Workers” speech be coming home to roost?

Following the mass walkout by energy workers at the Lindsey Oil Refinery after its owner, Total, awarded a £200m contract to Italian firm IREM – who has been paid to bring in more than 300 of its workers from Italy to do the work – the BBC report that solidarity action has broke out in the following ways:

Workers at Grangemouth Oil Refinery, in central Scotland, walked out in solidarity with the Lincolnshire strikers. Hundreds of contractors – who work for BP and INEOS – agreed the move at a meeting. INEOS said the site was safe and fully operating.

The Unite trade union said contractors at six other Scottish sites were also involved in action, including Scottish Power’s Longannet and Cockenzie power stations, in Fife and East Lothian, Shell’s St Fergus gas plant in Aberdeenshire, and British Energy’s Torness facility in East Lothian.