TONY BLAIR has promised to leave office by the summer, but he could be gone a lot sooner than that. Having already seen his popularity plummet because of the Iraq war and the growing revolt against hospital closures, his administration is now mired in the scandal over the sale of honours to wealthy Labour Party donors.
It's no secret that all three major parties sell honours major donors who stand a much better chance than average of becoming a Lord' or 'Sir'. But because of a new law passed in 2001 this process has become more complicated.
Now parties have to reveal the name of any significant donor to the parliamentary standards committee, and donations from abroad are banned. This makes it transparent when people have been given honors for donations.
All the evidence is that Tony Blair's team attempted to circumvent these requirements by the simple device of designating the donations as "loans' - which (if made on a commercial, interest-bearing basis) do not have to be made public. Prior to the 2005 general election, which Labour
won easily, twelve millionaire
donors gave Labour almost
£14m in secret loans.
But it seems that police
investigators, who have interviewed Blair twice, do not
believe these were commercial loans'; and of course several of these donors later got
honours.
Among the donors were
Rod Aldridge, chair of the
outsourcing giant Capita, who
has received many public contracts for his company.
He loaned Labour £1m last
year in 2005. Also on the list is
Richard Caring, owner of the
high-class Ivy restaurant. He
offered Labour £2m.
Sir Gulam Noon, the 'curry
magnate' who made a fortune
providing pre-prepared foods
for supermarkets, is believed
to have seen his nomination
rejected by the Lords appointments commission because of
an undisclosed loan worth
£250,000 given to Labour last
year.
Ironically the 2001 law was
pushed for by Labour when in
opposition. Labour suspected
that the Tories in government
were getting secret large
donations from wealthy foreign backers - in the Middle
East and North America- and
In truth, Blair's popularity has been damaged beyond repair by the Iraq War and his perceived position as Bush's poodle plus the government's failure, despite all the efforts and all the money, to fix the public services, especially the
Blair is self-consciously trying to 'secure his legacy by pushing through hugely unpopular public service reforms, and by tying Britain to a policy of extensive and adventurist militarism.
He is rushing through the decision to replace the ageing Trident nuclear missile system (at a cost of around £30bn) and lecturing the nation about how the British are "war fighters" and not just "peace keepers".
According to Blair, the war we have to fight is against "Muslim extremism'. The Blair government is complicit in the generation of huge levels of Islamophobia which numerous commentators have likened to 1930s antiSemitism.
Tony Blair will be replaced, barring major mishaps, by Gordon Brown. Despite the delusions of some leftish MPs, Brown's policies don't differ one iota from those of Blair.
Brown has never hidden his admiration for the United
States, and more specifically for their business practices
and economic policies.
British politics appears
becalmed because the convergence of the three major parties is spectacular. Tory leader
David Cameron has indulged
himself with appearing to the
"left' of Blair on questions like
hospital closures, and by
trying to become a central
advocate of 'green' politics.
Liberal leader Sir Menzies
Campbell has moved to ditch
radical Liberal tax policies,
and thus move his party into
the tiny space of homogenized
neoliberal politics.
Blair's departure, while he
still apparently dominates
Labour politics, can
summed up in a single phrase:
the public don't trust him
anymore and that is becoming
an electoral liability for the
party.
His legacy is already written. On most issues - all the
decisive ones - he has continued and deepened the legacy
of Margaret Thatcher.
Britain is the most thoroughly neoliberalised society
in Western Europe. That is a
legacy that will take a long
time to overcome. John McDonnell