Karen,
My own forecast on Blair ("The demise of Tony Blair" earlier today) was
more specific -- always more dangerous. The swing back of support for Blair
in the last few days is something I forecast -- the testosterone effect. It
always happens when there is the prospect of a fight. It even affects the
ladies, too (remember those crowds of upper-class society ladies who used
to spectate the wars of the nineteenth century in Europe?).
But when reality sets in and humanity reasserts itself, then support for
Blair will swing away. Remember the photo of the naked girl running down
the street in fear in the Vietnam war? That did more than millions of words
in previous years. Well, we've already some pictures. The photo of the
little girl who'd had her legs blown off was enough for me to make my
opposition not so much a matter of intellectual or political opposition but
of intense anger for which I would cheerfully hang if I could lay my hands
on Bush's throat.
Each time there's a war a new generation has to be taken in by the
propaganda and then learn to distrust it. It's an educational process that
takes a little time. But it will come soon enough in the case of this war.
What I've noticed this time is that the lies and propaganda from the
authoprities, political and military, are questioned much more quickly than
in previous times. The media (at least the media over here) is much more
sceptical than ever before. (But they've got to be very careful to report
the lies in a dead-pan way. It's the type of questions reporters ask at
press conferences, also asked in a dead-pan, innocent, way that show just
how wary they are.)
Keith Hudson
At 07:19 27/03/03 -0800, you wrote:
<<<<
What a difference a good night's sleep and a little popular mandate will do
for you. This is about Tony but could be said for George, too.
>>>>
REVERSAL OF FIRTUNE
British public opinion has shifted toward Tony Blair since the war in Iraq
began. But will it last?
By William Underhill
March 26 -- Could it have been a double? The under-eye bags were gone, the
hair was sleek, the manner was upbeat. Tony Blair, according to journalists
at this week's Downing Street press conference, was back in top form.
The British Prime Minister who arrived in Washington today is not quite the
same stress-worn prime minister who met President George W. Bush for an
eve-of-war summit almost two weeks ago.
Why the new Blair? One partial explanation could be simple relief. The
prime minister has at last secured the prize that eluded him in the long
run-up to hostilities: majority support for war among his own people. One
poll published this week found 54 per cent backing for British
participation in Iraq -- jump of 16 points in just a week. Opposition stood
at 30 per cent.
The swing looks like a powerful vindication of the Downing Street
strategists who had always argued that opposition would start to ebb as
soon as the first salvoes of the war were fired. It also knocks away one of
his critics' principal arguments: that the prime minister was leading his
country to war without the support of the international community or his
own electorate.
Some of the plaudits belong to Blair himself. His oratory is credited in
reducing the possible scale of the rebellion among his own party members in
last week's debate that won him a mandate for war. Sure, a record 139
Labour members of Parliament were ready to vote against their leader --
that was before the prime minister had wowed the House of Commons with a
stirring speech about why the war was necessary. If Parliament was roused,
so too were members of the public.
Furthermore, Blair somehow persuaded the formidable International
Development Secretary Clare Short to stay in office despite her public
threat to resign if he failed to gain a second resolution from the United
Nations authorizing war. That was one more demonstration of his political
skills to impress the voters.
Blair can also thank his old enemies in the Conservative-owned press. When
war first threatened, some of the Fleet Street media heavyweights were
hesitant to give the prime minister their full-throated support. Attitudes
only crystallized in the final weeks. "Once the papers decided this was
really an important matter they were ready to put aside their loathing for
Blair," says Roy Greenslade, a media pundit and former editor of the
tabloid Mirror. Result: the kind of headlines and comment columns that will
have helped to push the don't-knows into the supporters' camp.
Still, there's little cause for complacency in Downing Street. Those
surging poll figures still trail some 20 points behind the number of
Americans who expressed support for the war immediately after it began, and
rank far below levels reached in previous conflicts. In the 1991 gulf war,
support for the government reached 70 per cent; for the Kosovo campaign of
1999 it climbed to the mid-60s. Says Philip Taylor, a media expert at Leeds
University: "Most newspapers usually go on message when the boys go to war,
but at 54 per cent it is still well below what we are used to."
Perhaps more significantly, the polls say more about patriotism than
conversion to the war cause. "Opinion has swung round behind the people
facing the bullets," says Graham Allen, a Labour M.P. who helped to
coordinate last week's rebellion in the House of Commons, the lower house
of Parliament. "The public feels it would be treacherous not to give their
support: they don't make the distinction between supporting the war and
supporting the troops."
The pattern is familiar. In times of crisis, nervous voters rally round the
armed forces, their leaders and their institutions. "I have always said
that when Tommy goes to war the public will follow," says veteran
opinion-watcher Bob Worcester of the polling and research group MORI. "This
is a democratic society. The prime minister has made a decision and has the
support of Parliament."
Can such support continue? For a short time certainly, says Worcester,
though he's reluctant to speculate on just long the public could tolerate a
war of setbacks or stalemate. For a historical precedent, he looks to the
United States, where it took several years of conflict and thousands of
casualties for the American public to turn against the war in Vietnam. Much
may depend on the Iraqis and their apparent readiness to ignore the
established codes of war. "The longer that Saddam Hussein doesn't play by
the rules, the more resolved the British public will be," says Worcester.
But this conflict may defy such precedents. Because CNN was largely unknown
to British audiences 12 years ago, this is the first war that British
viewers can watch round the clock in their living rooms -- mostly on
home-grown 24-hour news channels. In time, relentless exposure to shots of
bloodied casualties and dead civilians is sure to sap the fighting spirit.
Besides, whatever Blair may argue, neither the public nor many experts are
ready to accept that Britains national interests are at stake. "Unlike the
Second World War or the cold war, this is not a war of necessity -- it is a
war of choice,"says Sir Michael Clarke of the Centre for Defence Studies in
London.
Without the bolstering of necessity, the public's long-term commitment to
war will always be open to question. A few more disturbing pictures from
the battlefront or Baghdad and the numbers could turn against Blair again.
Says Clarke: "When the images are persistently bad it raises doubts about
what you are doing in the first place." Next time Blair meets Bush, the
wrinkles could be back on the prime minister's forehead.
>>>>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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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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