Sinking

PROLOGUE

He’d made that "no reverse gear" speech and then walked out of the international centre in Bournemouth. His wife was with him and they both waved at the fans, for the cameras. He was smiling and I tried to notice whether he looked like a lying criminal, but really he was too far away for anything like that. His suit was well cut.

And there was a blonde. I don’t know who she was, but she was tall and slim and beautiful. She shook hands with Tony Blair and then followed him up the hill. I can´t think what she was doing there, dressed in white.

I asked some people who she was, but no one seemed to know. I decided I´d just made her up.

SINK IT

It’s difficult to know what to say. I feel like I haven’t eaten or slept for days. I can feel my body deteriorating. The Labour Party conference is nearly over, but not nearly enough.

Nothing fits together or makes any sense. I have some notes, scrawled in different places, sometimes on the newspapers that lay all over the floor in my nasty little hotel room. The room with a TV that doesn’t work properly. With the banging doors, stale air and no heating.

The notes were obviously written by an agitated person. The handwriting is mine:

“We must try only to escape with our lives. Armoured cars, heavy weaponry, cut-throats, police with guns. No reason, just action.

Some form of survival is the best we can hope for now. Women and children last. Leave the wounded, and anyone who won´t give you money, behind.”

“Royal Navy sink Argentine ship during Falklands war. International waters, illegal attack. Many dead. 1983. Tory MP Alan Clark said ‘So what does it matter where it was when it was hit? We could have sunk it if it’d been tied up on the quayside in a neutral port and everyone would still have been delighted.”

“Man arrested at Labour Party conference after trying to perform citizens arrest on Blair for war crimes.”

“Poll shows majority believe Blair lied over Iraq but also want him to stay in office.”

"Blair says ´trust me´."

There are more notes in my flip pad, things I wrote while watching the Rt Hon Tony Blair give his tear-jerking speech to the party.

I remember there was a big screen listing the greatest achievements of his government. Money for this and that and legislation and reform and low inflation and more shit jobs for more people than ever before. No mention of the five wars in six years. No mention of Iraq. He claims it is a country freed from the tyranny of an evil dictator, a real threat to the world erased. A population liberated. A proud achievement. Why isn´t it on the list?

The notes, in no particular order;

"Too much clapping, no one capable of thought is also capable of banging their hands together so long, adjusting their style for to lessen the pain. Stupid people walked again and again into a wall. A bad sign. Do they believe this shit? Did I really hear them clapping for ID cards? Did I hear them clapping for a war that killed thousands?"

"Scripted emotion, worked out in minute detail over weeks. A sales pitch. Rhetorical tricks. A card sharp using a letter from the mother of a dead boy as his ace."

"Another warning sign; this man is capable of manipulating the emotions of his audience, a very dangerous thing, worse than breathing out poison. Just how dangerous is he?"

"No apology for the war. The war is clapped. I´ve never seen people applauding a war before. It´s a strange thing to see and says something about the morality of the tribe. Implications I don´t want to think of."

"Promise to change, promise to listen to the people. But knowing he wants things and will do what is necessary to get it. Listen and then agree."

"Woman spectator says ´it´s quite humbling really. I bet she clapped the ID cards, the war, and stifled a sob at the death bit. Like a good film. Trash. Poor value unless you´re a fool, in which case you deserve what you´re getting."

"What happened in this hall today is unspeakable. I would prefer not to have seen it."

That was all a few days ago now, and I´ve already forgotten the details of the speech. It was never something to remember, surely not even for the faithful. Just lots of dressed-up emptiness. People won´t talk about that ´no reverse gear´ moment at the 2003 conference. They won´t remember what they were wearing. They won´t even remember where they were when they heard it. It is already disappeared words.

And that means it was a speech that defined an era - a Prime Minister who misled his nation into war and who refused to apologise even when exposed by the evidence. And a party - a country - that not only forgave him his sins, but applauded them.

It defined a era in which a man of no particular ideology or substance can be presented - and accepted - as a man of vision and depth. It defined an era in which a Prime Minister says ´trust me´ and people take him at his word. It defined an era in which murder is acceptable as long as it´s committed somewhere far away.

Most of all it proved that, in an era in which we all have access to more factual information than ever before - more chance to see the truth - the overwhelming majority either ignore it totally or accept it but hold no one to account.

EPILOGUE

Tony Blair will be the Prime Minister for a long time yet. A sex scandal or massive recession would bring him down, but there is no prospect of the former and the latter is just another maybe that´s worth him gambling on avoiding.

Where will he take us? How close will we follow the US, and where are they heading? Bush is starting to face questions at home about dead GIs, multi-billion dollar bills and the absence of WMD. Will this put him off Syria and Korea and God only knows where else?

But Tony Blair is here to stay. He is a leader for times like this. The perfect man for a country that gets all it deserves. No more, no less.

I think I imagined the blonde to help me cope. Day dreaming of an angel.