CHURCH GOSSIP
British Prime Minister Tony Blair had a bad week. On Sunday former Labour Party fundraiser and novelist Ken Follet attacked a government that ruled by malicious gossip and off-the-record briefings against its own ministers. On Monday Blair's off-the-cuff proposal of spot fines for drunken hooligans was shot down by police chiefs who said it was impractical. On Wednesday the Prime Minister's Freudian slip that his was a government of 'spin over substance' spoke volumes. And that day, news broke that his sixteen-year old son Euan had been detained by police, after being found flat out drunk in Leicester Square after celebrating his O-level results - and even given the police a false name and address.
Increasingly, the New Labour government looks more like its scandal- ridden and banana-skin prone predecessors in the Tory party. Like the Tories, Labour suffers from the inevitable consequence of moralistic preaching at the country: the spotlight falls on every trivial indiscretion of those around it, whether it is Euan's binge, or Home Secretary Jack Straw's son's cannabis score. If Labour was not in the business of wagging its finger at trivial misdemeanours like drinking and smoking weed, then these would never have been the news stories they became.
More problematically, the absence of a clear political strategy means that court gossip substitutes for real political debate. Former Prime Minister Margaret 'Thatcher had an ideology, Blair only has a strategy' explained one civil servant to Paul Vallely in the Independent (4 July). Another said 'Thatcher was passionate about ideas; she liked "big thinkers" and she wanted to win arguments'. But 'Blair likes highly directed thinkers - problem solvers. And he tries to avoid arguments - he likes harmony around him.'
In the absence of a sense of purpose, Blair has increasingly depended upon a personalised moralising. On Thursday, Blair used a public platform to share his angst over Euan's bad behaviour. It was an attempt to get the public to identify with him as a father. Addressing the people on a pseudo-personal basis means that the government has little else but moral homilies to offer. Opposition parties, understanding the government tactic of personalising the crisis have laid off of any attacks on Euan's misfortune. But ordinary people will find it difficult to reconcile Blair's appeal that Euan is 'basically a good kid', with the decidedly intolerant judgements of the misbehaviour of their children's misdeeds. Moralising does not only corrupt politics it reduces moral judgements into political tactics.
The Moral Malaise, a one-day conference takes place this coming Wednesday, at the Union Chapel, on Upper Street, Islington, London.
LOYALISM'S LAST GASP
Today, the Orange Order marches in Drumcree, to clash with the security forces when marchers try to go down the catholic Garvaghy Road. Banned by the government-created 'Parades Commission' that seeks to regulate northern Ireland's 'marching season', the order has made the protest a last stand for loyalism.
The turnout will be large and violence is likely, but as special advisor to first minister David Trimble recently told the Week, 'Unionism is finished' as a mass movement. For a century Unionism mobilised protestant people behind the reactionary programme of crushing the mostly catholic nationalists and republicans. Since then, the republican movement has made its peace with Britain, making the Unionists' campaign redundant. In the eyes of the British elite, Sinn Fein's politicians are people they can do business with, and who understand the committee-room etiquette of modern governance. The recent decision of the IRA to allow its guns to be inspected by an international team and put beyond use demonstrates that republicans are no longer in the business of mass mobilisations.
By contrast the Unionists are furious that the last stumbling block to Sinn Fein's assent into government has been removed. Their bullish assertion of the right to terrorise catholic families was once what recommended them to the British government. Those same methods today have convinced Britain that popular Unionism is a bigger danger than republicanism. -- James Heartfield
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