Denying the humanity of those we dislike is wrong on many levels.
Theologically, we thereby deny that we’re all siblings in that we all have the same Father.
Philosophically, we thereby deny several millennia’s worth of historical evidence (not to mention the doctrine of original sin) by implying that evil is so alien to human nature that evil people can’t possibly be human.
Scientifically, we thereby deny that all people are put together roughly the same way. No, Blair is definitely a Homo sapiens and, if those Miranda reports are true, in his younger days he was also a Homo erectus.
On these bases, I shan’t insist that Blair isn’t human. But surely one is allowed to pose the eponymous question rhetorically?
For Blair lacks most characteristics associated with humanity. One such is morality, against which most of us transgress.
Blair doesn’t. Unlike most of us, he simply has no concept of right and wrong. Whatever suits him at the moment is right, whatever doesn’t is wrong, it’s as simple as that.
Corollary to that is his inability to feel shame, as demonstrated by his brazen attempt to regain power. Yet the Chilcot report, regrettably not followed by a criminal charge, proves that Blair lied to get us into the Iraq War.
And that’s not all. Having criminally caused the on-going Middle Eastern disaster, Blair vandalised our constitution by creating unnecessary bodies, such as the Supreme Court, and emasculating the necessary ones, such as the House of Lords and the office of Lord Chancellor.
In 2004 he also went along with the EU’s suicidal decision to admit unlimited numbers of immigrants from places where hatred of the West is an article of faith. All that would be enough to make most people withdraw into solitude and try to come to terms with their shame. Not Blair.
Nor is he burdened with such a basic human virtue as gratitude. Just look at his relationship with Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch created Blair politically. Without Murdoch’s News Corporation, Blair would have remained an obscure Labour MP shunned by his parliamentary colleagues for his insane ambition unsupported by any discernible qualifications.
Gratitude would have been in order, but what did Blair do? He had an affair with the old man’s young wife, doubtless causing him no end of grief.
When entertaining Mrs Murdoch, Blair was no longer PM. He was busy making millions, every one of them in ways consistent with his amorality. Blair has never met a bloodthirsty tyrant he couldn’t love, provided the cheques didn’t bounce.
For example, no self-respecting man would want to sully his hands with the dirty lucre paid out by Nursultan Nazarbayev, who turned Kazakhstan into one of the world’s biggest Mafia families. Yet Blair is proud to have that despot among his clients, one of many such personages on his list.
The scary news is that Blair has launched a political comeback. Having spotted “a massive hole in British politics”, he clearly expects the currently unelectable Labour party to bring him back, putting all its rotten eggs into one bastard.
To that end he has launched a comeback campaign, marshalling the support of cross-party malcontents, especially those like Nick Clegg who are desperate to undermine Brexit. Keeping Britain in the EU at all costs is the Trojan horse Blair has saddled to ride back to power. The ensign flapping off his lance has ‘second referendum’ written on it.
His “mission” is to persuade Britons to “rise up” against Brexit, even though they’ve unreservedly risen up for it. Yes, but they did so “without knowledge of the true terms of Brexit”.
That may be true, but the implication is that the Remainers had weighed every one of those ‘true terms’ in the balance before casting their vote. In fact, they’re just as ignorant – or even more so, for they don’t realise that there’s only one ‘true term’ that matters: Britain’s sovereignty, to be either regained or lost for ever.
According to Blair there’s “a way out from the present rush over the cliff’s edge” spearheaded by 52 per cent of the voters: “If a significant part of that 52 per cent show real change of mind, … we should have the opportunity to reconsider this decision.”
I’m not an unequivocal champion of democracy, but Blair pretends he is. Doesn’t he realise that, using the same logic, every democratic vote can be reversed – certainly including all those elections that got this amoral nonentity into 10 Downing Street?
The Brexit majority was solid by any modern standards, and the subsequent Commons motion to invoke Article 50 was passed by one of the greatest majorities in parliamentary history. So shall we ignore Parliament as well as the popular vote?
“This issue is the single most important decision this country has taken since the Second World War,” Blair says, “and debate can’t now be shut down about it.” What, ever? Suppose he gets his illegal second referendum and loses it. Should we then have another one and then another, ad infinitum? Can anything shut this debate down?
Also, I dare say ‘the most important decision’ has been to debauch our constitution at Maastricht by turning Her Majesty into an EU citizen – not the decision to restore the status quo that goes back two millennia.
Technically speaking, Blair is human. But he acts like an animal brought into this life to do just one thing, with no inner freedom to do anything else.
Blair’s real ‘mission’ is Blair, just like a predator’s mission is to kill and devour weaker creatures. A tiger pounces when it smells a prey; Blair pounces when he smells an opportunity for self-aggrandisement.
In pursuit of this mission he displays superhuman determination – and subhuman ghastliness.
Blair’s arrogance and antinomianism is truly epic.
I was waiting for your thoughts on this – and you didn’t disappoint!
Your headline question, further explained as metaphorical, is apt. I have often wondered at how this man can continue to want to impose his own World view in light of the strategic disasters he has caused. Even the largest ego would surely retreat in shame or quietly devote themselves to good works – à la Profumo?
I have come to the conclusion that, like all of the unrepentant, messianic megalomaniacs that litter human history, this is a genuinely evil man.
Evil, yes. But many will describe, say, Talleyrand the same way, and yet he was a great statesman. What’s amazing about Blair is how mediocre he is intellectually, in addition to being arrogant and antinomian. That, I’m afraid, says more about us than about him. We seem to vindicate de Maistre by electing politicians we deserve.
‘Antinomian’ – perfect!
Talleyrand, of course, had a long record of solid diplomatic achievement. Yes he had all the Machiavellian (or Mandelsonian to modernise) qualities, but his foreign policy initiatives were largely positive and Napoleon would have been wiser to to have kept him.
Yes even the late George Michael, in an interview discussing his dinner date at No 10, said that he came away with the strange feeling that Blair ‘wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer…’
Bullseye with your last sentence. I decided to call it quits with the UK after three consecutive ‘New’ Labour governments followed by another ‘New’ Labour government – calling themselves the ‘Conservatives’. I decamped to France where I have been an interested observer of French politics without having a horse in the race.
Not having a vote is strangely liberating.