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The Practice of apologising appears to be spreading among politicians.
First we had Richard Holbrooke voicing regret for American wrongdoing towards Cyprus. Now Britons have been treated to the spectacle of their prime minister, Tony Blair, beating his breast over party funding.
True, in his live TV interview last Sunday Blair did not apologise for Labour's acceptance of one million pounds from Formula One racing chief Bernie Ecclestone. Neither did he say sorry for the party's apparent volte-face in exempting Formula One from the ban on tobacco advertising in sport. He vehemently denied that the two were in any way connected, angrily rejecting the suggestion that Labour had rewarded a political donor.
But he did acknowledge that Labour's presentation of the tobacco sponsorship issue had been mishandled and said: "I take full responsibility and I apologise for that."
Viewers might have been forgiven for feeling Blair's apology was mistargeted, that he was saying sorry for a venial sin while refusing to confess a major fault. Even so, coming from a politician, his words were startling; their like never passed the lips of Margaret Thatcher.
The most remarkable aspect of Blair's TV performance, though, was its amour propre, the prime minister's sense of wounded indignation. Blair said he had been "hurt and upset" by suggestions that he had been influenced by Ecclestone's million in diluting the ban on tobacco advertising. He stressed that he was "a pretty straight guy" who would never "do anything improper". He asked people to believe that he remained "the same person they believed in" at the general election. And in a ridiculous admission for a politician, he said: "I couldn't understand that anyone would impugn my motives in taking the decisions that I did."
In sum, Blair showed all the signs of someone who has come to believe his own publicity. He is the squeaky clean crusader who ousted a notoriously sleaze-ridden Tory government. His `New Labour' administration represents a fresh start in British political life, a move towards probity after years of graft and scandal. Tony himself is a notably devout and observant Christian. How could anyone possibly believe that he would act from anything other than impeccable motives?
What Blair has evidently forgotten is that the common and abundantly justified attitude towards all politicians, including himself, is mistrust, suspicion and cynicism. People are perfectly entitled to "impugn his motives". No politician's actions are self-authenticatingly honest or good. It is natural that voters will examine the deeds of all such beings for evidence of self-interest, backsliding or repaying favours.
And it is not as if Blair hasn't given the great British public ample cause for scepticism as to his sincerity in recent months. He has reneged on several pre-election manifesto pledges. First, there is the broken promise on fox-hunting. Labour's manifesto committed the party to "ensure greater protection for wildlife" and pledged "a free vote on whether hunting with hounds should be banned by legislation". The free vote is likely to go ahead and produce an overwhelming parliamentary majority for a ban. But it will come to nothing because Blair's government will refuse parliamentary time to enact the legislation.
Labour also made a pre-election promise to ban cosmetics testing on animals. But Blair's government, instead of imposing the blanket prohibition which polls show nearly 80 per cent of British voters want, has settled for a voluntary agreement with the cosmetics firms to end a minority of tests.
The story is the same with tobacco advertising. Labour's manifesto committed the government to a comprehensive ban, one covering the sponsorship of sporting events. But Blair's exemption of Formula One means that 90 per cent of the cigarette cash which goes into sport will remain unaffected.
And just this week we had Blair's social security minister, Harriet Harman, breaking a pre-election pledge to reverse Tory cuts in welfare payments to lone parents.
Against this catalogue of U-turns and abandoned commitments, it would be no surprise if Britons thought their prime minister habitually spoke with a forked tongue. Yet the remarkable thing is that Blair's pained performance as of one unjustly maligned has every chance of being taken at face value. Where Blair is concerned, many if not most British voters seem to have abandoned that instinctive bias towards incredulity which should initially greet the claims of all politicians. Several of my British friends, usually highly cynical about politicians, have surprised me by their starry-eyed view of New Labour and its leader. They are extremely reluctant to believe anything bad of Blair, going to great lengths to find extenuating circumstances for his conduct. It is hard not to accuse them of gullibility, especially as the list of broken promises gets longer. But I believe their charity is an understandable reaction to the years of Tory sleaze. It would simply be too painful for them to believe that having got rid of one bunch of scoundrels, the new lot were just as bad.
As a matter of fact, I don't believe Blair and New Labour are as bad, in the sense of `corrupt', as the previous Tory government. That is to say, I don't believe Blair dispenses political rewards in return for cash donations to Labour. Those who suspect his U-turn on tobacco advertising was a quid pro quo for Ecclestone's million pounds are following a false trail. His flip-flop was motivated by a fawning desire to prove to big business that Labour has changed, that under his leadership the party has abandoned all pretence to radical socialist policies, that he is a safe pair of hands. Since becoming Labour leader, Blair has shown a consistent desire to ingratiate himself with the rich and powerful (viz his hob-nobbing with Rupert Murdoch), and to distance himself from Labour's traditional working-class roots. The irony is that Blair would probably have reneged on his promised tobacco ban even if Ecclestone hadn't given Labour a penny. That in fact is effectively what has happened, seeing as Labour has decided to return Ecclestone's cash.
But Blair and New Labour are every bit as bad as the Tories so far as untrustworthiness goes. They are proven breakers of promises. Last week, Tony Blair implored voters to continue to believe in him. Why should they, when he has repeatedly failed to keep his word?
From Cyprus News
http://www.cynews.com/November/23/columns112301.htm
Thousands of people across Britain have been sadly disappointed by the first few months of New Labour's 'rule'. Its a far cry from 1945 when working people were charging down the street crying "...they're in, Labour are in!"
This time John Prescott's first major act was to privatise the tube and Gordon Brown gave up political control of money. The new cabinet give every appearance of being "Corporate Labour". So can they represent the interests of both bosses and workers?
Britain has the fastest widening gap between rich and poor of all the OECD countries and New Labour don't seem to care. They trumpet the virtues of a 'Stakeholder Society', yet say nothing about where the stake is for those that don't have a permanent job... which is something like 1/2 of the population. We are all being encouraged to fit in with a corporate agenda. Socialism is dead.
The fact is they had to get into bed with big business to get elected. For the simple reason that the vast majority of the media are corporate. Even the BBC board of governors have been appointed by Tories for the last 18 years so they're hardly going to look out for the working man.
Once they got into bed with them it was not quite so easy to get out! Labour has become a charade, spineless little puppets of our real masters who inhabit the corporate elite world, an echelon above politicians. This is not simply speculation, New Labour has for several years now agreed to go along to secret meetings with the Global Elite: Transnationals; The media; Banks. John Smith, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and now their supporters in the 'left wing' press, Wil Hutton at the Observer have all been to the clandestine Bilderberg meetings. We now have a national politics ruled by fear, fear of losing money, resources, our job, our mortgage, our home. Democracy has become a sinister charade and the only way to leave a future fit for our children to inherit will be to get back control of money creation and redistribute land resources to the people.
The latest addition to the cabinet shows how corrupt our system can be. Lord Simon was boss of BP and all of a sudden is made a life peer, resigns his former post and becomes a government minister. The public have had absolutely no say whatever in his appointment.
New Labour is the latest Public Relations company working for the Global Elite. They won the May 1997 contract for Britain which is due to run for five years.