Bernard Kouchner - 2 comments

I don't know whether it says more about UK media priorities or French foreign policy that I'd completely forgotten that former Socialist Minister (now expelled from the PS) and Médecins Sans Frontières co-founder, Bernard Kouchner, is Minister for Foreign and European Affairs in Nicholas Sarkozy's UMP administration.

This is especially poor, considering I've recently finished Paul Berman's Power And The Idealists, which covers the lives of left-wing '68-ers Joschka Fischer (the former German Foreign Minister) and Kouchner, amongst others, in some detail, together with the humanitarian/interventionist causes and battles they have been associated with ever since, amid the oscillations of the left in Europe and in the USA. Though Berman is one of those authors with an unimpeachable left/liberal reputation who is frequently derided as a "neocon", it's a great little book, from which I could easily have quoted big chunks of of the later pages.

As for Kouchner, it's encouraging that a left-winger with a humanitarian track-record has the power, and a skin thick enough, to remind people of the danger of an Iranian nuclear programme, and to start to build a consensus that the regime in Tehran must not be allowed - one way or another, whether the UN can be relied upon, or just Europe - to succeed in holding the Middle East, and its own population, hostage with nuclear weapons.

Update (18/09): minor tweaks.
Update (28/09): I notice Soumaya Ghannoushi has stepped in over at CiF. I think it's fair to say that I disagree with her political views more profoundly than I do any mainstream politician in the UK. This is, of course, no coincidence, given her track record as an arrogant and unprincipled apologist for dictators, for Islamism, and against liberal values:

All he [Sarkozy, Kouchner] stands to gain is the dubious honour of being known as Bush's new poodle, and having angry protesters against US foreign policy burn his effigy instead of Blair's.

Give me Sarkozy any day of the week.

Brown welcomes Thatcher - 5 comments

What a nauseating sight. I can't imagine any remotely plausible political strategy behind the event, so I suspect it means nothing: a photo-opportunity arranged by a starry-eyed flunky to make their politician look well-travelled and a 'heavyweight', or, as Thatcher's former private secretary claims, 'a nice gesture' (one pays one's peers). Either way, a sign that senior politicians are a class apart from rest of the population, whatever their country, whatever their politics. Embarrassing? Sure. A sign of future policy direction? Not necessarily.

The thought, however, that this might have been designed for a political purpose, or that Brown believes being a 'conviction politician' is at all worthy in itself, or is a characteristic around which politicians ought to come together, is too horrible to contemplate. So, all in all, I can't agree with Adrian here: the prize of crushing Cameron isn't worth sacrificing anyone's soul.

Against Nihilism - 4 comments

I should read the Drink Soaked Trots more; here's a great article from Eric (via Paulie), though sadly it may mark his farewell from blogging:

Much has been written by commentators about the so-called arrogance of those "liberals", for want of a better word, who wish to impose Western democracy on other cultures (a straw man in itself) and who wish to protect their own liberal democracies from totalitarian and reactionary forces who will use violence to further their cause. In reality, the more arrogant voice of liberalism is that coming from those downplaying the threats, who big up the (non-existent) threat of an authoritarian centrist government (Labour or Conservative). It's as though they believe that democracy is some sort of natural condition, not susceptible to attack or degradation. That it exists in some other parallel universe, never at threat from external forces in the world.

And also:

Politicians are attacked for providing answers, yet the media do not create the space for sensible public debate in the game of cat and mouse they play. It isn't just the media either, it is a wider malaise and disenchantment within the political class - and by that I mean in the very broad sense of all those who actually pay any attention to politics. Has there ever been a time before when there have been so many people utterly unhinged about contemporary politics?

Read it all, it's intelligent blogging.

Tory hypocrisy - no comments

Stephen Pollard covers shadow Tory defence minister, Gerald Howarth's comments on reports that the RAF 'will take advice from Stonewall on how to make itself more attractive to homosexual and bisexual men and women, and is aiming to spend tens of thousands of pounds on advertising in the "pink" media':

[...] the shadow Tory defence minister with responsibility for the RAF, said that he thought that "taxpayers would be aghast" that public money was being used to support a pressure group. "This is an extraordinary exercise in political correctness," he said. "The idea that the homosexual community is not already aware of the opportunities in the Armed Forces is ridiculous, and to go out and specifically recruit on the grounds of a person's sexuality seems to defeat the whole purpose of anti-discrimination legislation."

True, the words themselves aren't necessarily bigoted, but the tactic is classic Tory dog-whistle politics: the coded signal has been sent out to 'nasty' voters that 'nice' politics a la Cameron is just for the networks and the newspapers that the 'nice' voters consult, and that the illiberal obsessions of the Tory right will not be left unmet.

Tom Freeman has more hypocrisy here:

Cameron also accuses Labour of "incompetence" and "untrustworthiness" and generating "disgust". He warns that in 2007, "Labour’s dark side" will come to the fore, in the shape of Gordon Brown.

He adds, speaking through a mouthful of unmelting butter: "we need to prepare ourselves for an onslaught of negative campaigning".

That Cameron has the gall to utter "we must show that unlike Labour we will be a party that is for working people, not rich and powerful vested interests", suggests this media monster believes he really can say just about anything and get away with it. Hopefully the electorate has had enough of media-driven politics, one-man revolutions, and Boy Kings, to inflict five years of that upon itself.