Hi Arthur,
Let me nip down to USP's comments on the possibility of a National
government in the UK.
At 17:18 11/03/03 -0500, UPS wrote:
(UPS)
<<<<
. . . .
(By the way, what would be the result if he defies a significant part of his
caucus, and joins with Tory suppporters to sustain a decision on Iraq? A
few years ago I read Kingsley Martin's older biography of Harold Laski, and
got more insight into the crisis in 1931, when the Labour cabinet split on
unemployment benefits and the Prime Minister broke with his party to form a
National Government with Baldwin's Conservatives. This was seen by Laski,
and a majority of the caucus, as a "great betrayal."
. . . .
>>>>
The chappie concerned was Ramsay MacDonald. He'd been heading a Labour
Government (the second of the L.P.'s existence) on 23 August 1931, couldn't
bring off a massive curtailment of high government spending because of
internal opposition, and resigned. Instead of heading fast for political
oblivion on 24 August, when a Conservative-Liberal administration was
expected to be announced by those invisible "fix-it" people that surrounded
royalty in those days, up he popped with a proposal for a National
Government and, before anybody could say "Jack Rabbit", he was Prime
Minister again -- sometime between supper one day and lunch the next.
However, although he was a very personable, able man, who'd built very good
connections with the rich and powerful (rather like Blair today), he faded
rapidly from then onwards. He'd already had a long political life. He'd
lost his original socialist fire of the 10s and 20s and was slightly more
interested in taking afternoon tea with the gentry than achieving any solid
social reform.
A much better analogy for Tony Blair today is Lloyd George's National
Government of 1918 (apart from the fact that Lloyd George was far more
articulate than Blair is -- without doubt the most intelligent and able
Prime Minister of the last century bar none). Lloyd George was able to
combine the less-queezy element of his Liberal Party that had supported the
war (as he had done as Munitions Minister), the "Old Labour" part of the
Labour Party (that is, the trade unions which had done very well out of the
war, thank you very much, rather than the Fabian-type Bloomsbury
Socialists) and the modernistic elements of the Conservative Party (that
is, including the industrialists who'd also done very well out of the war).
Loyd George had an overwhelming electoral triumph in 1918, but there were
too many other stresses just under the surface (the rise of the Irish
Republican Army and the establishment of the Irish Free State, rising
unemployment and many national strikes by workers, etc) and Lloyd George
was very much a Prime Minister at bay. He tried to re-create the sort of
jingoisim of the 1914/18 war by almost declaring war on Turkey in 1922, but
neither the left or the right within his administration would have any of
it, and his government collapsed.
Now it's well known that Tony Blair hankered after a close association with
the Lib-Dem six years ago when he became Prime Minister and well-nigh
offered a Cabinet seat to the leader, Paddy Ashdown. He never quite pulled
it off because there was big opposition from almost all sides of the
Parliamentary Labour Party. He couldn't possibly associate with the
Lib-Dems over the Iraqi afair because they are agin it to a man, but the
Tories might be a different matter. In the current Iraqi situation, it's
highly likely that Blair will need Tory votes when they debate the proposed
second resolution in the House of Commons in a day or two. Indeed, Blair
might be quite tempted (given his admiration for Thatcher's economic ideas,
not to say her ability to make rich friends) to join forces with the
Tories. After all, the Tories have a pretty pathetic leader, a failed Army
career Captain (or perhaps Major) with hardly any credentials or experience
or jobs worth speaking of in real life, so, maybe, your average Tory MP
might jumpt at the chance of a real living-dancing leader and not a
cardboard cut-out.
But the previous two attempts at National Governments don't auger well. I
don't suppose Blair has read much history -- he's not that sort (though
he'll have read hundreds more books than Bush no doubt!) -- but one of his
high-level advisors will steer him away from this, I'm sure.
At the moment it's looking as though the clever British amendments for the
second resolution will be a bit too clever for everybody else and the US
will drop back to 1441. In that case Blair will need Tory votes in the
House of Commons to "authorise" British troops to go in ('cos he's promised
a debate and vote), and get them. But whether there's a resolution or not,
and Blair goes in with the Bush, then there's still the big problem that
the Labour Party in the country will be hemorrhaging badly. If the war then
starts going badly with many civilian casualties then he'll probably resign
quickly. He can do so fairly gracefully by saying that George Brown has
waited long enough. But I suppose what will be important is that George
Brown will have had to have shown anti-war credentials, but he's been
supportive so far. So he'll have to be a quick-change artist fairly soon
after the invasion.
It's all a bit of a mystery what will happen. One thing is for certain and
this is that cynicism about politics and government will have increased
greatly during these months. One of the trends that politicians have
worried greatly about in recent years is that young people have not been
joining political parties or voting. The recent anti-war demos have shown
that young people still care, however. But they're probably going to be
even less inclined to vote after the war than before it.
And then yours faithfully will then be back on his favourite FW hobby horse
-- that the nation-state is falling into dereliction and that new political
processes and new type of governances are in the making. (And certainly one
of the result of the Iraq affiar, I'm sure, will be a make-over of the
structure of the UN, with particular reference to its own police force/army.)
Keith Hudson
A similar development,
with more fatal consequences, occurred over the same issue in Germany in the
late 1920s and early 1930s. The Center Party (a Catholic party), which had
been in coalition with the liberals and some Social Democrats, to provide a
stable government in the mid-1920s, split the coalition when issues of the
social safety net arose. By 1931, Chancellor Bruning (a left-wing Center
Party politician, who had started in the Catholic trade union movement) was
dependent on the right-wing of his party (including von Papen, who had
earlier been ousted from the caucus, but re-admitted) and the nationalists;
eventually, von Papen took over, was ousted by a political coup, tried to
come back again and brought in Hitler as a coalition partner.)
Last point. I don't think I indicated that I had any illusions about
political leaders being idealists. On a plain reading of what I wrote
earlier, I thought that I clearly indicated that normally, for quite
self-serving reasons, they act to save their own skins, and don't persist in
kamikaze tactics (unless they are fanatics). Thus, I concluded that there
would have to be something worse that Blair was trying to avoid if he
persisted in this kind of self-defeating situation. In general, one
doesn't take these risks of loss of power or position simply for the sake of
a hypothetical gain (a slice of Iraqi oil, as tempting as that might be) or
the expectation of a golden parachute when one loses office (that is a
consideration, but it is expected, from one quarter or another, if you lose
power; in the meantime, exercising power is preferable, in most
circumstances).
Regards,
(You can post this, if you like, with the usual safeguards for my
anonymity). UPS would be a satisfactory anonyme < as long as nobody expects
me to go around, delivering parcels.)
I feel that the situation has changed greatly and that unless there is a
suitable out, Blair could be either ousted or hamstrung, and the U.S.
opposition against Bush could mount significantly (particularly if there are
problems on the way to Baghdad, one could begin to see some stirrings of the
"let's impeach the President" concept (a 5% chance right now, but who knows
what could happen). I don't have any great liking for Bush. But I don't
want to see a major domestic political war in the U.S., nor do I want Saddam
and his supporters to realize how effective their brand of psychological
warfare can be in the age of the "wired world" and to be able to claim
victory.
I think the Bush approach could have been successful if they hadn't farted
around with international approval to start with, and moved as quickly as
possible on the basis of the right of self-defense. What they did, in an
age of instantaneous communication, is to give their opponents a huge amount
of time to mobilize against them. Is this the way that wars will
increasingly be fought, i.e., international mobilization of opposing
governments and populations?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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