Today’s Observer carries the Blair vision of the future
A disturbing vision of the dangers threatening the UK is to be revealed by the Prime Minister tomorrow when he unveils a landmark foreign policy review. Tony Blair will lay bare the challenges facing Britain, which include:
Threats to security the danger from both foreign extremists and ‘home-grown’ terrorists has risen since the September 2001 al-Qaeda attacks.
Sigh… We’ve been here before. Britain has weathered the terrorist threat before and will do so again. Terrorism is a fact of life. It does not mean; as this government seems to think; that we give up our freedoms in the face of that threat. it does not mean that all citizens must be catalogued and treated as suspects.
Climate change – in addition to the environmental perils, the paper predicts possible major political and security upheavals as a result of its specific effects inside China, India, Russia, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
Disease – Downing Street fears major economic and social effects from HIV-Aids epidemics, particularly in Africa where the scale of victims is already interfering with the functioning of some states, but also in parts of eastern Europe and Asia. It also foresees a ‘high risk of an influenza pandemic’ in which poor countries will suffer worst.
More scare mongering on a grand scale. Three decades ago we were warned of an ice age, two decades ago we were all going to die of AIDS. While there are problems in the world and some of the changes predicted may, indeed, happen (AIDS already has in parts of the third world), what we have here is another attempt to scare us witless. This has two effects; it entrenches the politicians’ power as they are the ones who will rescue us from the dire consequences of our excesses (and from the naughty men and women who want to kill us) while we hide under our beds – and, naturally, they can tax us to the hilt for our own good and we will feel a warm glow of satisfaction that they have done so. Ain’t that positively decent of them? As opposed, of course, to them being power hungry, trough grubbing criminals lining their own pockets, flogging honours to their mates and generally fucking us over for their own benefit.
Politicians are liars, cheats, mountebanks and charlatans. They seek to further their own ends at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. Bearing that in mind, this policy paper announcement is a cynical ploy designed to strengthen politicians’ grip on power while diverting attention away from their own malefactions.
I viewed this as pure news management. The Labour party has a lot it wants to keep off the front pages this weekend.
And NOW ! BIRD FLU !!! Will we soon see Lord Matthews of ‘Twizler’ ?
Mark,
One can understand your cynicism. The entire focus of any politician’s career is to gain and hold power.
As a relatively interested observer of events, however, what is becoming more difficult for me is to dissociate the speakers from the hugely important events they speak about; and that can’t really be healthy either.
True, although when they deliberately inflate the issues to make them appear worse than they are, my cynicism deepens immensely. The constant banging on about terrorism is nothing more than a ploy to promote their draconian illiberal agenda of control. The actual threat is manageable and certainly cannot be described honestly as “unprecedented”.