Follow my leader!

Following my courageous fight with a dead prawn - which won - I am happy to report my complete recovery and that what passes for normal(!) service here, at Duff & Nonsense, is once again resumed.

The other night I gave a talk on the Battle of Waterloo and yet again I was struck by how well that battle fitted the wise admonition of Benjamin Franklin: "A little neglect may breed mischief ... for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the [General] was lost"; or perhaps, my misquotation (sorry!) of Burns in the heading to my last post, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/ Gang aft a-gley".  Whatever, Bonaparte set in train great events over which he lost control and which then engulfed him to his everlasting rage and puzzlement.  Looking back with the perfect 20/20 vision of hindsight one can see clearly some of the errors of omission and commission that led to his defeat.  It leaves one pondering upon the imponderable of what, precisely and exactly, do 'great leaders' possess that persuades others to follow them into the greatest personal, political and military dangers.  I am tempted to use (or abuse!) that poor word 'courage', but that would be  an error.  Timid leaders, with strong reasons for their timidity emanating from their nation's weaknesses, can still claim the mantle of 'greatness' if their timidity saves their nation and avoids that much-admired (in some quarters) action - the futile gesture!  Thus, some of us (yes, alas, I include myself) might find it hard not sneer at the Belgians standing petrified before the oncoming headlights of Hitlerian Germany, whilst singing the praises of 'mad' Polish lancers charging on horse-back against panzers.  Thus, courage is a virtue but not all the time, and not everywhere.

Oh dear, what a long-winded, meandering way to state 'the bleedin' obvious'!  But I am provoked to these ruminations by the recent actions of our last two premiers.  Right or wrong, Mr. Blair, a man from whom I would hesitate to buy a second-hand car, suddenly broke with all his previously exposed characteristics of shiftiness and undeviating pursuit of whatever cause would ensure that his bottom would slide onto the prime ministerial chair, suddenly threw his weight, and his job, behind the invasion of Iraq.  Now, this took considerable political courage.  He risked his premiership and his reputation, and he took on not only the broad, apathetic weight of British public opinion which is always vaguely anti-American but his own party as well.  Indeed, it was this very sense of conviction from a man I had previously thought incapable of spelling the word which provided one of the reasons why I supported him.  Of course, he was utterly unscrupulous in the methods he deployed to achieve his aims and by dint of much lying and corruption (in the sense of politicising the intelligence services) he 'won' the day - my inverted commas around the word 'won' need no explanation!  My point is, that for the purposes of this discussion, whether he was right or wrong is immaterial, the fact is that he had a very clear idea of what he wanted to achieve and he went for it, and slowly, and reluctantly, first his party, then parliament, and finally, the country, followed.  I repeat, for the moment, forget the specific issue, just look at it as an exercise in political leadership.

Need I say that all of that stands in direct contrast with the political cowardice of his successor, formerly spoken of as one of the political giants of the era, 'a man with bottom', a 'big cat in the jungle', whose rages and tantrums shook the rafters in Downing Street for ten years, and who is now perceived to be a trembling pussycat who doesn't throw the furniture around anymore but, instead, hides under it?  In my lifetime I have never seen a 'big man' shrink with such rapidity until, somewhat like the Cheshire cat, nothing remains except the scowl!  I have no sympathy for the Labour party, which is itself decayed and corrupted from within judged by its conduct of the Crewe by-election, and needs a long period in exile to renew itself, but even so, it is a major party of the realm and the fearful man who leads it also leads my country.  A pusillanimous poltroon like Gordon Brown is not fit for that purpose - it is time the Labour party acted.

Do it, Labour, do it for England!

Comments

[dearieme]

"agley"?

I wonder how many of the phrases attributed to Ben Franklin were really his: 20%, 10%, 5%....?

Anyway, about Gordon. The question is, is it possible to use his inadequacy to finish the Labour party for ever? Back to Tories vs Whigs - that would be the thing.

[David Duff]

Thanks, 'DM', I've never been much good at foreign languages! Correction completed.

As for Franklin, I can't pretend to know much more of him other than his sayings. Your remark made me read some more of them from my Dictionary of Quotations and if only half of them are his, he sounds like a shrewd, witty fellow. I particularly like: "He that will live upon hope will die fasting." I must look out for a good, recent biography, even if I know, glumly, that it will end up on the increasingly precarious pile of 'Books Yet To Be Read'. My ignorance on the American revolution is shameful.

As for your final hope, it will be fascinating to see if the snake of Old Labour succeeds in swallowing the carcass of New Labour as it enters its death throes. It seems to me that the real problem that the likes of you and I have, is figuring out a way to make the Tories, er, Tory!

[Umbongo]

Sorry for the late comment but isn't another explanation of Blair's decision on Iraq the calculation that he could trump Mrs Thatcher's real political courage concerning the Falklands with what looked to be a riskless foray into machismo? The heavy lifting was to be done (and was done) by the US and neither Blair nor, apparently Bush, gave much thought as to what was going to happen after the inevitable military victory. I suspect Blair - seeing this as "his" Falklands - imagined a swift return to normality with the equivalent of a career FCO Governor-General seated in Baghdad. In short, Iraq was a Blairite policy par excellence - ie war (rather than the usual legislation) as PR - not an out-of-character blip. The pity is that this policy didn't just waste British treasure (we've got used to that over the past 11 years) but wasted British (and other) lives.

[David Duff]

It's never too late for an intelligent comment, Mr. Umbongo, and you make a very shrewd point. However, Blair did run a very real and high risk in taking on his own party to support - shock-horror - the Americans in a foreign "war for oil", even if, as was hinted at throughout his premiership, he viewed his own party with barely concealed contempt. Not the least of his problems at the time was the strong possibility that he would fail to take his party with him and go to war backed by the Tories - not a happy prospect for a Labour leader.

I guess, as so often in human affairs, it will prove almost impossible to disentangle the mixture of motivations that drove him to gamble - but you're right, vanity was certainly part of it. Just hope I live long enough to read a detached history of the episode.

[Umbongo]

"Just hope I live long enough to read a detached history of the episode."

Agreed but it's very disconcerting to see something that one's lived through become a part of "history".

[David Duff]

When you get to my age you get used to it!