No comments about The Caged Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, 1932-40.

1 comments about Memories of Maggie: A Portrait of Margaret Thatcher.

1. I tried to buy a copy of this book on July 4 (Charter day/Independence Day) from Charter Books, but Charter Books do not serve overseas customers. Charter books are too new, have too high prices, and have yet to sell anything. Thus I am unable to become the Charter Customer of Charter Book. Darn.

   I am buying a copy "Memories of Maggie", from another source.
   I will be particularly interested in what the book says about Thatcher's younger days in a grocer's shop, where she probably learned to serve the customer's interest, except occassionally when the customer's needs could not be met, and the young Thatcher could shine explaining alternatives.

   Thus Thatcher become a World Leader with a non-self-serving frame of mind (I admit to not liking her at the time), unlike many other tyrants for whom self-servingness is a way of life. The Thatcher revolution "chartered" a new way.

   Back to Charter Books. So long as other book shops in the neighbourhood sell at normal prices, there is nothing wrong in you selling at tenfold prices, though you may need to make exceptions from time to time.

   The writer thinks it will be useful to be able to compare the Thatcher grocer store and things like charter books ... ...

   Thus concludes the Charter review of "Memories of Maggie".

   DH 04/05 July 2003

No comments about The Life and Times of William Ewart Gladstone: Part 2.

3 comments about Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency.

1. 
   James Naughtie, the Today presenter, has written a useful account of Blair's links with the USA, particularly with Bush and his colleagues. Naughtie recalls that when he asked Pentagon insider Richard Perle what came next after Afghanistan, Perle replied, "The really important thing is that there is a next."
   
   So, in January 2002, Bush set the timetable for invading Iraq and told Blair. Blair then promised to join Bush's war, secretly changing government policy from peace to war, without telling anybody.
   
   Naughtie writes that the `bloodstream' of the US-British special relationship is the intelligence linkage. Indeed, the USA's intelligence services are the world's biggest and most expensive. Yet all the US intelligence claims about Iraq's WMD - the uranium oxide bought from Niger, the mobile chemical laboratories - have been proven false. US intelligence was so bad that the CIA's head resigned, and his deputy left too.
   
   The Labour government had all these intelligence resources behind them. Yet their notorious government dossier on WMD was largely pilfered from a ten-year-old PhD thesis! So what, exactly, did Britain gain from this so-special relationship and its precious `bloodstream'?
   
   As a result of the illegal invasion of Iraq, there is now an illegal occupation of Iraq. Naughtie quotes a senior Foreign Office man who described the US's occupation policy as `a catastrophe from beginning to end'.
   
   When Naughtie asked Blair if he agreed with the White House lawyer who said that the Geneva Conventions were `quaint', Blair replied, "Of course not. Neither do the Americans." Typically, Blair was denying the evidence just put in front of him.
   
   Labour's war (for the Labour Party could have stopped it, but didn't even try) has weakened all that it holds dear. The link with the USA is in danger, the EU split, NATO divided, the Labour Party eviscerated, and Parliament, the Foreign Office and the intelligence services all discredited. But worse, Labour's war has made Israel increase its killings, thrown the Middle East into chaos, worsened the risks of terrorism to Britain and elsewhere, and added the danger of endless wars in a `clash of civilisations'.



2. The political behavior of British Prime Minister Tony Blair is something of an enigma - why does he support the American president, so despised in the UK, at great harm to his popularity? Why did he back Bush into the war in Iraq, ostensibly in quest of weapons of mass destructions, even though the UN inspectors urged for more time?
   
   As Blair followed George W. Bush, his popularity in the UK plummeted, his party is in something close to an open revolt, and his standing in Europe has deteriorated. And for all his trouble, it appears that Blair got precious little in return from the American administration. As French President Jacques Chirac recently put it "I am not sure that it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favors systematically."
   
   British journalist James Naughtie, author of another acclaimed book about Tony Blair (the Rivals, about the relationship between Blair and Gordon Brown), tries to answer these questions precisely. His answer is that Blair is a true believer; he believes that the 9/11 has been a wake up call for the world. "I could see this Islamic Extremism... bring about a very dangerous conjunction of terrorism and states that are utterly unstable and repressive" (quoted on p. 203). These views of Blair's antedated 9/11. They were the impetus for his promotion of the Kosovo war. Already in the late 1990s, Blair saw a new international order rising, one based on the struggle against evil. The terrorist threat required a whole new political philosophy:
   
   "Before September 11th the world's view of the justification of military action had been changing. The only clear case in international relations for armed intervention had been self-defence, response to aggression. But the notion of intervening on humanitarian grounds had been gaining currency" But after 9/11, "What had seemed inchoate came together." The need for security required preemptive action. Countries which suppressed freedom, harbored terrorists or had weapons of mass destruction had to be dealt with. In effect, Blair agreed with Condoleezza Rice's claim that "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud".
   
   So is the Labour PM really in accord with Bush, Cheyney and Rumsfeld? In Naughtie's thorough discussion, it is not so simple. There is a great difference between Bush and Blair. Naughtie quotes Blair as saying "I never quite understand what people mean by that neocon thing" (p.71)
   
   That may be the key to explain the great divide between Blair and the Bush administration. Blair may not be aware of the gap, or of its enormity. The Prime Minster believes in the importance of democracy. For him, the military action against Iraq or El Qaeda is only a part of a greater attempt to create international security and peace. "You cannot deal with terrorism security as simply a security issue. You also have to deal with the more compassionate side of the issue... the poverty, the lack of interfaith understanding. All these things need to be part of the agenda." Although Bush and his administration may pay lip service to these ideals, for them internationalism and real international cooperation are anathema. They cannot possibly support them.
   
   In my view, Blair's partnership with Bush committed him to the Bush administration's incompetent, corrupt and extremist policies. Naughtie seems to think that Blair's support was essential or at least important, to Bush (see for example p. 203). But I disagree - in the Bush administration, the moderates, as Paul O'Neal observed, act as cover only. Bush would use Blair for all he is worth - but he would concede nothing in return.
   
   I have much sympathy for the ideology Blair advocates, but Bush is no partner for promoting it. Blair's collaboration with the Bush administration not only diminishes his popularity - it also discredits his cause.



3. This book represents a great achievement in explaining what drove the seemingly strange pairing of a UK Labour prime minister and a US Republican President on a venture that hardly any other major political leader in the world supported, being the war on terror post 9/11 which ultimately led to the invasion of Iraq and its ongoing occupation at great cost to the occupiers and the Iraqi people.
   
   The writer is a UK political correspondent with great experience of the Labour Party (he has written the best account to date on the Blair relationship with Gordon Brown, whose unwillingness to remain Number Two features to the end of this book) and the US and while he covers the US aspects very well his real story is on the road that led Blair to a policy that few in his party really supported and has since cost him dear in public perceptions of his leadership.
   
   After a rather unfocussed start (where the story seems to be continually jumping around in time) it settles down into an incisive chronological analysis of how Blair having reached his agreement with Brown to be leader then became prime minister without any prior government office experience and with an unassailable parliamentary majority started to develop links with Clinton which then had to be replaced with Bush after his slim victory over Gore.
   
   That both have developed such a strong personal bond despite very different backgrounds and world views is skilfully explained in the context of Bush badly needing Blair to have international credibility for his very US neo-conservative driven strategy and Blair having taken a very personal decision with little input from his Cabinet in seeking a great international issue to grasp. The book gives a very good feel for the inner workings of Blair's "presidential" style of government especially in Cabinet that led to this being so easily done and which Naughtie demonstrates led to Bush underestimating how far Blair had gone out on a limb and was then exposed to UK parliamentary revolt against that decision.
   
   Naughtie includes lots of personal off record comments that flesh out how the end result was Bush and his Executive conceding little to their end gameplan (the book should kill any remaining views of the UK ever being likely to benefit from the much touted "special relationship" unless US and UK interests are aligned on an issue) and Blair having made a personal commitment based on his early views of Islamic revolutionaries then being moulded post 9/11 into a intransigent loner who trusted his instincts and not the counsel of his colleagues and advisers plus other political leaders. The book is worth buying just for the chapter on the failings of the various Intelligence Services and how in the UK their role was to try and provide evidence and justification for a decision which Blair had already made and in which they failed him plus fooled themselves into not providing the clarity that may have stalled (if not stopped) him.
   
   A very unique book with one of the best book covers I have seen in years!

No comments about The Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli, M.P: A Literary and Political Biography. Addressed to the New Generation.

No comments about Winston S. Churchill: Companion : 1907-1911 : Part Two.

1 comments about The Next Leg of My Journey.

1. Lenor Chappell's story is an inspiration to not only those who live with a handicapp, but to all of us. Her story of overcoming the gamut of life's adversities and living her life to the fullest is one of the finest examples of how perseverance and a positive outlook are really the keys to living a vigorous and happy life. Written with wonderful humor and candid emotions, Lenor has not only achieved to write an entertaining and moving story, she has also succeeded in imparting her special inspiration for living to us so that we may also find it within ourselves to prevail over our own travails. A must read!

No comments about Lloyd George (Great Lives Observed).

No comments about Correspondence Of John Sedgwick, Major-General V1.

No comments about Lloyd George (British History in Perspective).