Hare does Blair

I’m rather excited about David Hare’s forthcoming play, Gethsemane: a satire of New Labour. If it comes close to matching Stuff Happens, I’ll be extremely happy.

This got me thinking: which artist captured the essence of the Blair years and the man’s personal style most effectively?

Steve Bell did pretty well; it’s the eye that does it for me. I quite enjoyed Robert Harris’ satirical thriller too. But I don’t think anyone has yet matched that other Blair, Eric, in capturing what it’s like to watch a Blair speech:

His voice had grown almost dreamy. The exaltation, the lunatic enthusiasm, was still in his face. He is not pretending, thought Winston, he is not a hypocrite, he believes every word he says.

I know “mon” means man, but I don’t think “och” means anything

Following a fine tradition tradition that encompasses Hugh Trevor-Roper and Garth Merenghi, Paxo nails the Scotch.

Christopher Hitchens gets served by AJP Taylor

Christopher Hitchens won’t abandon his position on the war, claiming he’s being proven right by, um, rising oil prices. Andrew Sullivan – who had his own Hari moment -  makes light work of Hitchens’ obstinancy:

Let me try to get this straight: a prediction that the entire war and reconstruction could be all but paid for by the Iraqis is vindicated by a $2 trillion expense to the American tax payer because five years after the invasion, Iraq’s oil supplies are finally bringing in revenue. I mean really.

But one of the best servings of Hitchens, Paul Berman and others on the “decent left”, came from AJP Taylor more than 50 years ago:

Imperialism was a product of Radical enthusiasm… Every Imperialist believed that Great Britain had achieved the highest form of civilization ever known and that it was her duty to take this civilization to ‘the lesser breeds without the law’. These were radical beliefs. The coloured races should receive the emancipation which had been denied to the Bulgarians. Cromer, the leading figure in Egypt, was a Liberal. So was Milner, who first worked in Egypt and then became the chief maker of the Boer war. Whenever Milner returned to England, he spent his time with Liberals – Asquith, Haldane, Grey – never with Tories… Chamberlain the greatest Imperialist of all, would have led the Liberal party if he had not fallen foul of Gladstone. The Imperialists had little respect for tradition. Kipling, the bard of Empire, was so contemptuous of the Establishment that he refused all decorations, including even the Order of Merit; and he described Edward VII as ‘a corpulent voluptary’.

‘Gold standard’

As ever, the Torygraph refers to A-levels as a “so-called gold standard” qualification. If A-levels cannot fairly be described as “gold standard”, isn’t this a good thing?

Chinese amorality

Back in the day, Lord Palmerston apparently asserted that “Britain has no permanent friends, she only has permanent interests.”

China’s growing presence in Africa, with little concern for values, let alone a mission civilisatrice, makes me wonder if China is the new Britain (just with less liberalism at home). And if so, should we care?

Plenty of Asian commentators, and their fellow travellers, say no: “leave China alone”. Today, a Beijing Olympic official, Wang Wei, echoed this by criticising international media for coming to China “to peak, to be critical, to dig into the small details and find fault” in the country’s human rights record.

With all due respect to Godwin, and inspired by George Packer, I had a flick through Victor Klemperer’s diaries, I Shall Bear Witness. Klemperer read about the likes of Mr Wei in the 1930s:

A new phrase has appeared in the papers and presumably comes from France. The French Popular Front is starting a ‘crusade of ideas’, for the Spanish Communists and against Fascism. That is quite shocking, our press responds, scandalised, National Socialism doesn’t do anything like that, it wants every nation to be happy in its own way, it doesn’t carry on any propaganda outside Germany. This is the most loathsome feature of the swastika crusade, that it is conducted hypocritically and in secret. ‘We’ are not conducting a crusade, ‘we’ do not shed blood either, we are a completely peaceable people and only want to be left in peace!

Consistency

Russia’s justified response to Georgia’s unprovoked attack on South Ossetia is no different to Nato’s barbaric attack on Serbia for seeking to recontrol areas of Kosovo imbued with Islamic terrorists.

So Russia’s intervention is “justified”, Nato’s “barbaric”, but they’re both “exactly the same”, obv.

The Guardian letters page: like a retro Have Your Say.

Spot the difference

BBC Olympics medal table

CNN Olympics medal table