C’mon Cherie: even Goering stuck up a bit for Hitler
Rod Liddle says it is no surprise that Gordon Brown has ended up as surly and suspicious as he has: the memoirs of John Prescott, Lord Levy and Cherie Blair are appalling acts of treachery and avarice
I had hoped to bring you a little more fine detail about Cherie Blair’s menstrual cycle this week — I had provisional charts mapped out and so on. But at the last moment I came over a little queasy. Obviously all of us need to know precisely when she is ovulating, in case we should wish to impregnate her while her husband is away lecturing at Yale or bringing peace to the Middle East. But my nerve failed me. This is a personal failure and should not reflect badly on the lovely Cherie. She is believed to be the first inhabitant of 10 Downing Street to have shared with the electorate the delicate comings and goings of activity in her fallopian tubes and beyond, and the first to have called Princess Margaret a stuck-up old slapper; for this stuff alone we should thank her profusely. She has greatly added to the mirth and gaiety of the nation. She is one of many dispossessed former New Labour luminaries trying desperately to force shut the coffin lid on the regime they brought into life, the cadaver inside the coffin still palely bleating that he’s not actually dead. The various hideous autobiographies and diary excerpts published in the last year or so seem to take as a given that it’s all over and that Gordon Brown’s administration is akin to the discarded tail of a sand lizard, twitching for a few moments as if possessed of sentient life but in fact devoid of purpose and hope. Just the vestigial nerve endings doing their very temporary stuff, disconnected from the centre.
I know that in publishing these days time is of the essence, but has any departing administration in memory been quite so hasty and rapacious in piling on the ordure? Was there ever before a case of departed politicians and their sinecured hangers-on moving more speedily to pile the ordure on to the heads of their former colleagues, while insisting that they themselves were quite beyond reproof? Hell, even Goering felt the need to stick up for Hitler at Nuremberg — but then, I suppose, nobody offered him a million quid for his memoirs. There is something simultaneously vile and pitiable in the procession of these famous names into their agents’ offices, determined to tell everybody that they were not remotely a party to the bad things that went on, that history should judge them much more kindly because they were on the side of the angels. And then, upon being exhorted with the lure of a few extra thousand quid, cheerfully sticking the boot into their former colleagues, some of whom, for obvious reasons, have a certain limited ability to defend themselves. And at the heart of all these outpourings, of this quick march to the lucrative confessional, is the thing which was at the very essence of Blairism — an infinite, consuming and unquenchable narcissism and vanity. Was there ever a man more vain than Lord Levy, and with so little cause to be so? Well, Peter Mandelson, perhaps. Or maybe even Cherie. Or Alastair Campbell. When push came to shove, any notion of loyalty and decorum and reserve was thrown overboard so that they could make as much money as possible from their badly written, tawdry memoirs and, if possible, exculpate themselves from any lingering allegations. Ask not what you can do for your country, ask only about the size of the advance.
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Kevyn Bodman
May 15th, 2008 4:35pmLord Levy, John Prescott, Cherie Blair, Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson do not appear on that list of people I'd like to sit next to on a trans-Pacific flight.
But, as I said on a CoffeeHouse thread, let the market operate.
I won't be buying their books,and I won't be buying newspapers that serialise their books.
And I won't mind if publishers lose money on them and change their policies on publishing these self-serving political memoirs.
But it's a market, and loads of people don't think the way I do on this. That's a matter for them, and I'll have to put up with that.
John H Miller
May 15th, 2008 5:00pmWell, there is some consolation - I read the witches book was being marked down at half price from the moment it goes on sale.
I imagine, in the case of Levy and Prescott, that their first editions are already on the ship to Poland for land fill. I'm not sure of the consequences of this, whether the shit will make the site a new Eden, or whether the poison will mean it will be barren for the next millenium.
Peter Gompertz
May 16th, 2008 11:48amWell done Rod - on the button again; and the comments so far are almost as good. I can't compete so I'll carry on laughing at the vanity of these self servng morons.
Andrew Forbes
May 16th, 2008 1:32pmThere used to be such a thing as dignity of office.
I don't blame Levy much, though: when they all got a bit twitchy over the Cash-for-Honours thing, Blair et al made it quite clear who they expected to be the fall guy. So Levy knew then what his friendship and loyalty was worth.
David Short
May 17th, 2008 1:24amI think Mr Liddle is absolutely right to say Gordon Brown has been damaged by his experience with these creatures, the Blairs, the Campbell and the Mandelson.
I think of Mr Brown as a fine, principled and intelligent man. We should be proud that he is our Prime Minister, but I fear that instead we shall soon have a rich kid Old Etonian PR man in his place. Sad, sad, sad.
Karl Kraut
May 17th, 2008 12:28pmTwo excellent articles: one on cult leader Jim Jones, and one on Gordon Brown, a culled leader.
Still, I can't believe anybody wanting to buy these books, as I'm feeling itchy all over already just reading this article about them. What a worthless bunch of tasteless exhibitionists, who have nothing of interest to share or intelligence to impart—not even amusement: just plain greed, (self)degradation and backbiting.
Ray
May 17th, 2008 12:46pmUnlike David Short, I wouldn't go as far as to call Gordon Brown 'principled' - although I do believe he sincerely believes in his self-appointed mission to "lift people out of poverty".
The real tragedy of Brown is that he appears to have copied across the most contemptible aspects of Blairism - such as the cynical attempt to manage the media and govern by soundbite - whilst lacking the bottomless chutzpah of his predecessor that might have enabled him to pull it off.
Therefore, nobody is fooled by the constant stream of half-truths and untruths (or 'Brownies', as the Spectator has dubbed them) that he utters.
And even worst for New Labour, Brown himself simply cannot comprehend that the voters are no longer fooled, and so keeps churning them out like a washed-up comedian who has failed to grasp that his audience are busily vacating their seats and leaving him to chuckle at his unfunny jokes all by himself.
David Short
May 17th, 2008 6:00pmI take Herr Kraut's point, but I don't see Brown as a master of the 'soundbite'. If he were, he'd be more successful at the moment. I see him as old-fashioned Labour, which means by definition he is out of fashion.
More's the pity. I think the Labour Party, despite the change in leadership is just one wing of the same party, and the Tories are the other wing. That's Gore Vidal's point, first made about the two main US parties and why New Labour were scared sh-tless when he turned up at their party conference. They knew he would make that point. And it made them rather scared. But of course their heavies couldn't bundle out such a distinguished figure; they couldn't treat him with the same disdain as they did an old man called Wolfgang.
David Short
May 17th, 2008 6:02pmPS. I wrongly referred to Herr Kraut when I should have referred to Ray.
EyeSee
May 18th, 2008 4:51pmAll this article shows Rod dear boy, is that whilst you are aware of what normal people see when they look at New Labour (Blair, Mandleson etc) you remain completely blind to what you consider good Old Labour. Brown isn't it. Sure, he is as absolutely incompetent as any Labour MP needs to be to become part of the club, but otherwise he is wholly part of the current problem. Who do you think spent the last 11 years wrecking the country's robust economy? The delirious, power drunk Brown. He is Blair by another name. If anything, he has identified Blair as being basically juct a smiling moron and Brown has, from the outset decided to be even more stupid (his idea of success). And he can't even smile. Dounbt me? Who forced Brown to bottle the election? Who thought the 10p tax wouldn't hurt anyone? Who is clinging to power, at a rising cost to the taxpayer like the addict he is? Run the country? Not a chance. Tell people what to do? Now that is what he was born for. They all must go. And superb writer though you are, it seems the scales have yet to fall from your eyes.
grumpy old man
July 3rd, 2008 1:02pmRef " Shipped off to Poland for refill". The books can be dealt with at benefit to the public by recycling to toilet paper - a fitting use, Ifeel.