The Gray Monk

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November 10, 2005

Beginning of the end?

The defeat, last night, of Mr Blair's attempt to railroad legislation through Parliament, is a ray of sunshine in an otherwise bleak political landscape. The size of the defeat suggests that more than sixty of his own party voted against him on this, so perhaps they too, have finally woken up to the fact that Blair and his cronies have been abusing our democracy - nay, have been destroying it - and have now sent a signal saying "enough"!

Well, we can all live in hope.

Watching him squirm as he tried to pass the defeat of his much vaunted draconian legislation for detention without trial, I will confess to a feeling of satisfaction. At last some of this government's less than honest activities are being exposed. It may well be that the Police would like to be able to detain suspects without trial for up to ninety days. There is a very strong case for it even, but most of us are very uncomfortable about the lack of judicial scrutiny of it. Even more are very uncomfortable about the apparent control it would hand to a very small group of police officers and civil servants to decide who, where, how and for how long someone could be detained. As the late Pastor Niemoller wrote, "when they came for the Jews, I did not speak out, because I wasn't a Jew". Following through to "when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up for me!" Blair and his Thought Police should take careful note - Parliament has, for once, spoken on the concerns of the real moral majority, not the readers of the Sun or any of the other Rupert Murdoch controlled mouthpieces for Labour.

The truth is that this is not the beginning of the end for Labour or for their attempts to steal democracy and turn this into a one party state in all but name. Those of us who grew up in the Apartheid years under the South African Nationalist Party recognise the signs all to well. You change the electoral boundaries, create new "urban" constituencies and break up the oppositions "safe" seats, lumping these in with "safe" constituencies of your own and build in an unassailable majority while preserving the appearance of "free and fair" elections. You don't have to stuff the ballot boxes if you adjust the constituencies to ensure that you always have a majority of "safe" seats. Oh, and you stuff the Civil Service with people who are "natural" supporters of your policies.

Sadly, all that will happen if Blair goes, is that Brown will step up to the plate and take his place. Many of us suspect that Brown has been the Puppeteer and Blair the Puppet for some time. Who knows, he may even choose to install another Puppet - after all, he wants to preserve his image of success, so have someone else do the failing for you.

What we can all hope for is perhaps best summed up by this countries most famous 20th Century leader, Sir Winston Churchill. This may not be the beginning of the end, but it may well be the end of the beginning. Let us all hope and pray that it is!

Posted by The Gray Monk at November 10, 2005 11:31 AM

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Posted by: Slim Jim at November 10, 2005 11:57 AM