Have you got room for another one over there?
I don’t know if you’ve been following events in Europe recently (and I’ll forgive you if you haven’t as most of it’s deathly boring), but last week’s Irish vote in favor of the Lisbon Treaty has spurred on the worst-kept political secret of all time—Tony Blair’s ambitions to become the European Union’s first “president.”
The treaty itself’s a mixed bag, but positive measures like greater protections for unions are overshadowed for me—and I’m not alone in this—by the prospect of hearing his infuriatingly smug voice again for the next two and a half years a yet to be tried war criminal shaping a new key office in one of the most powerful forums in the world.
But skullduggery is afoot that finds me with unlikely allies:
[The EU’s] first official, permanent president of the council will be chosen in the least democratic of ways – behind closed doors by the 27 EU heads of state and government and without any of the candidates having campaigned before the court of public opinion.
“If you come out campaigning and saying you want it, that could be seen by heads of government as stepping out of line,” said a UK insider. “They see it as their call. A campaign would give your opponents an opportunity to mount their own campaign against you.”
So Blair has been running a non-campaign campaign for months. He has not said he wants the job, but neither has he said he does not. Friends have discreetly sounded out opinion on the diplomatic circuit on his behalf. Having reported back their qualified enthusiasm, he has allowed his hat to enter the ring without actively lobbing it in.
Headlines last week saying that Blair was in pole position to become president have been treated with suspicion by some Labour MPs who want him to get the job, as well as by some commentators.
They believe they are part of a spoiling operation by a Murdoch press which is moving ever closer to David Cameron and that sees such stories as a way to stir up opposition to the Blair candidacy.
The downside for Blair is that he’d have to give up some of the very lucrative interests (courtesy of old friend of Rumproast Lady Lynn Ladeda de Rothschild) that he’s developed since he was run out of town on a pale resigned as Prime Minister. He’d have to take a pay cut to a mere £250,000 per year and give up his efforts to promote peace in the Middle East (sorry—to paraphrase Tom Lehrer, this crap is beyond snark).
Since there’ll be nothing democratic about this appointment, the only recourse we have to register objections at the moment is that trusty old standby, the petition. And we all know how effective they always are.
So—have you got room for a little ‘un?
Posted by YAFB on 10/07/09 at 12:02 PM • Permalink
Categories: Politics • War In Error • Skull Hampers •
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