I have never known any other Prime Minister than Tony Blair. I was eleven years old when he came into office in 1997. Of his first landslide victory I can only recall a vague sense of delirious happiness from my mum (a lifelong Labour supporter) and some grudging relief on the part of my dad (a small ‘c’ conservative, but a Lib Dem voter in 1997 because he was so sick of the Tories). Everyone was so happy to kick the Tories out and Tony seemed like such a perfect replacement – one of the best accounts of the national Tony fever is given in the fifth Adrian Mole book – the Cappuccino Years:

‘Do you know Mr Blair?’ she asked, looking impressed.   

I watched in the driving mirror as my expression changed from confident to enigmatic. ‘Does anybody really   know Tony?’ I said. ‘I think even Cherie would say she doesn’t really know Tony.’

Mr Clough disciplined her children, who were fiddling with the pine air-freshener, and, with a touch of irritation in her voice, said, ‘But have you met him and spoken to him? Does he know your name?’

I was forced to admit that, no I had never spoken to him; and that, no, Tony Blair did not know my name. We passed the rest of the journey in silence.

Maybe not strictly relevant, but it does convey the hope people had for Tony when he first came into power. He was everyone’s pal. Dim as my awareness of it was, I knew there was something special in the air in 1997.

I grew up under Tony Blair; people of my age have only ever known him as their leader. Striding the world stage, rubbing shoulders with everyone and looking calm and composed whilst doing it – we have come to expect a leader that the rest of the world respects and listens to. Blair was a statesman of the first rank, of that there can be no doubt – he took tough decisions and stuck to his guns – I admire him for that. People forget that statesman navigate blindly; with no hindsight to light their way and their every decision effected by opinion polls and 24-hour media, their job is almost impossible.

Of course, his major decision, the one he shall be remembered best for, is Iraq . What was he to do? He could either refuse to back the US, break the transatlantic alliance and watch the US invade anyway with no international support at all, or he could lend a hand and be despised by his own party and much of the British population. The Party he obviously didn’t care about – he has always defined himself against the Labour PLP and especially its left wing. His defiance of the peace-marchers and the appeasers I respect and applaud – they never represented more than a vocal minority of the public anyway. When the war was launched, a majority of the public supported it.

More than anything, Blair’s support for Iraq was due to his own principles, which he laid out in depth in his famous Chicago speech in 1999. A quick scan of this speech reveals it to be truly internationalist in the best Socialist sense. Money quote:

This speech has been dedicated to the cause of internationalism and against isolationism. On Sunday, along with other nation's leaders, including President Clinton, I shall take part in a discussion of political ideas. It is loosely based around the notion of the  Third Way, an attempt by centre and centre-left Governments to re-define a political programme that is neither old left nor 1980s right. In the field of politics, too, ideas are becoming globalised. As problems become global - competitivity, changes in technology, crime, drugs, family breakdown - so the search for solutions becomes global too. What amazes me, talking to other countries' leaders, is not the differences but the points in common. We are all coping with the same issues: achieving prosperity in a world of rapid economic and technological change; social stability in the face of changing family and community mores; a role for Government in an era where we have learnt Big Government doesn't work, but no Government works even less.

I feel comfortable with the ideas of Globalization – it strikes me as a Good Thing in that it breaks down national barriers and puts on the path to being a Human community, rather than a British or French of Iranian one. Blair, I think, was a genuine Internationalist and he deserves credit for sticking to his principles on Iraq , when they were tested to their limits.

Of course, Blair made a catastrophic mistake, one that he shall have to live with for the rest of his life. He shall have to live with the fact that he played a major role in launching a war that killed over half a million people, created a breeding ground for Islamist terrorism and wrecked a major Middle Eastern country. Other supporters of the war, me included, will have to live with this as well, but for such a well-meaning man as Blair, this knowledge must (it must) disturb him deeply. The fools in Washington (which I am now doing my dissertation on – they really had no idea what they were doing at all.) fucked things up so badly that they doomed the whole enterprise before it had even begun. Did you know that the first meeting Bush and his buddies had about post-war Iraq was on March 10 2003? This was a week before the war began. Blair put his trust in the worst possible people. You can see the dilemma – Blair should have suspended his principles over Iraq and recognized the kind of men he was dealing with in Washington , but everything we know about the man tells us this is exactly what he was incapable of doing. A less principled and idealistic man would have avoided the war.

I wrote in my apology:

I was wrong. I turned into an idealist, perhaps even an ideologue. A better appreciation of the limits of my own judgement and of the ability of government to effect change in such a drastic way in a part of the world we little understood would have resulted in a more reality-based position.

This is pure conservatism. Looking at the world as it is, rather than as we hope it will become as a result of our actions. Blair had his eyes so set on a glittering future that he forgot (or ignored) the gritty reality of the present. He thought he could count upon messianic transcendence that carried him to Number 10 to effect real change in the Middle East – he was utterly wrong.

Perhaps Blair now thinks he can redeem himself by becoming a Middle East envoy and making peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. I think he is displaying exactly the same sort of foolish trust in his own abilities here as he did over Iraq . Any solution to that conflict will have to come domestically. There is only so much foreign envoys can do and Blair will not be trusted by any Arab ever again for what he has done.

-posted by Adam

Submitted to Redbrick Lifestyle

I like untidiness. Actually, I embrace it. It has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. On my floor at the moment I can see: ring binders, several odd socks, some clothes, a plate, bags, a few books, more clothes, newspapers, even more clothes and my right slipper (but not my left slipper, that’s probably underneath some clothes). As you may have gathered, the natural home for most of my belongings is on the floor. I can’t actually remember the last time I tidied my room, but it was probably some time before the French Revolution. My bedside table has CDs, pens and an alarm clock all clamouring for space. There’s more paper on my desk than in the whole Harry Potter series. And you know the best thing about it? I don’t care.

I simply don’t see the point of being tidy. If I’m reading a book in my room, it doesn’t matter how much junk is on my floor. It makes no difference whatsoever to the quality of the book, or how fast I read. After all, I’m more likely to finish the book quicker, because I haven’t spent so much time faffing around tidying up. There are more constructive things to do than worry about the state of my floor. I know the colour of my carpet anyway – it’s navy blue and clashes with the yellow walls – so why would I want to see any more of it?

Don’t take the laissez-faire approach to tidying too far, however. For a start, don’t take this “Adam Smith approach” too literally in the kitchen and bathroom. Having clothes on the floor is one thing; growing new species of fungi on your kitchen surfaces is something else entirely. Still, a little mess is almost inevitable, especially in our kitchen in Selly Oak, which is about the size of the average bath.

One major obstacle stands in the way of my rather unkempt state of bliss, and that is the infamous, marvellous, unfathomable species known as women. This hardly defies gender stereotype I know – but the simple fact is that no bloke has ever volunteered to tidy my room for me. I fail to see why anyone would want to clean up someone’s room just to make it tidy. Why? Why?? Why????

I really don’t know. One excuse seems to be that, “It means you know where things are”. Except I won’t. If you ask where something is and receive the reply, “I tidied it up somewhere”; you will never see it again. At least not this decade. Whereas at the moment I know where everything is – on the floor. What simpler system is there? Plus there is the added thrill of finding something among the mess you’d lost for ages, or forgotten you ever owned.

It seems that things have to be tidy, “just because”. Just because of….what? I do detest tidy people imposing their notions of what is good and what is not on the rest of us. Even Anthea bloody Turner is on the bandwagon now, telling everyone how to be a perfect housewife. If anything, that has to be the single most overriding reason for being untidy ever devised.

Perhaps being untidy could make you a genius. Beethoven, George Orwell and Sherlock Holmes were three famous untidyites(Yes, Holmes may not be real, but that’s not the point). If that doesn’t convince you, maybe science will. Apparently leaving your bed unmade will make you healthier, as it makes your bed less appealing to dust mites.

This principle could be applied further. One of my dad’s friends at university kept a pet rat. This rat, from a species famous for living in inhospitable hellholes like bins, sewers and

So next time you are told that your room is untidy, just ignore it. Do something useful and constructive – pick your nose or something. Read a book. There’s a whole world out there; experience it rather than tidy up.

Cory

Hot Ginger and Dynamite has some pictures from a recent Middle East rally which are amusing in a disturbing way.

Norm has details of an Engage meeting: Rally Against the Boycott, which is in London on July 11th. The speakers include Jonathan Freedland.

Andrew Miller from Cricinfo on Beefy's much-deserved knighthood.

I might not post on the Middle East for a while, but why not read this marvellous Amer Tahiri article in the Times.

That's enough to keep you lot busy for now, I think!

Cory

Now that Adam is posting again (Huzzah!) I am sure there will be some reaction on the recent fighting between Hamas and Fatah. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of what's going on, and will be catching on some much-needed reading over the summer.

In the meantime, as the possibility of there being an Islamist state on Israel's doorstep increases, here is a comforting picture of a kitten and a duck:

That is all.

Cory

Atheists are fighting back. So long a shunned and persecuted minority, especially in the United States (where, disgracefully, religious observance is still a de facto requirement for the holding of public office) people of unbelief have begun to assert themselves publicly and resist clerical bullying. This has been spurred by the publication of several books, the most recent (and best) being Christopher Hitchens ‘god Is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything’.

Hitchens is a throw back to the old eighteenth century man of letters, in the vain of Samuel Johnson and Percy Shelley. Hyper-educated, always pissed-off, able to wax lyrical about anything from the Bolshevik revolution to the Dreyfus Affair: he has no equal in Anglo-American journalism. His book is theologically literate and refreshingly worldly- combining a superb amount of scholarship and reading with a deep and broad knowledge of the world, gained from his extensive travels as a foreign correspondent for various newspapers and magazines. The tottering and crepuscular edifices of the world’s three major religions give Hitchens ample opportunity to display his legendary wit and sharp turn of phrase. For example, Hitchens proposes that the motto of the Catholic Church should be ‘no child’s behind left’, a reference to that organizations disgraceful record with regards its cover up of Clerical rape of children. The text is littered with classic one-liners like these. Indeed, humor and irony has always been a key weapon in the heathen’s rhetorical arsenal, Voltaire had it in spades, as did Bertrand Russell and the great Karl Marx. Hitchens deploys his own ample reserves of these tried and tested weapons-of-clerical destruction with scalpel-accurate precision and brutal effectiveness.

There seem to me two arguments afoot about the recent spate of proselytizing atheist books. The first one is the age-old question: is religion moral? Does it improve people’s behavior? Can a good life be lived without it? In this sense, Hitchens (and Richard Dawkins in ‘The God Delusion’) are simply carrying the torch passed to them by their illustrious heretical forebears: Russell, Voltaire, Spinoza, Lucretius and Socrates. This argument is as old as philosophy itself, and, as Marx said, its commencement marks the beginning of all criticism. Where faith ends, philosophy begins. These books are wonderful primers for a life free from faith and religious dogma. In essence, they are continuations of Bertrand Russell’s maxim, that the good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge, free from fear of death and the constricting iron-age doctrines of faith preached by Priest and Church.

I have chosen a side, as most people who think seriously about this question do at some stage in their lives. The intellectual case against religion and the faith impulse is overwhelming. Darwinian biology has provided us with an explanation of our origins far more simple, beautiful and eloquent than anything contained in a man-made holy text. Religion and science are not, as Stephen Jay-Gould, the great evolutionary biologist, once said, ‘non-overlapping magisteria’: two spheres of human thought that deal with separate areas of life and experience. Religion claims to have all the answers, it always has done, and probably always will. The meaning of life, origins of the cosmos, the creation of mankind, how to live a good life – priests and mullahs have issued edicts and commands on these questions for thousands of years, thus fulfilling a basic human hunger for Answers. Of course, the religious explanations satisfied people in bygone eras, when our species was still in its infancy, unaware of the world and its structure. With recent adherence towards free inquiry and empirical observation, we no longer need such crude answers. God is dead, and science killed him.

The Churches know this, and have been fighting a desperate rear-guard action to stem the rising tide of enlightenment – witness the current controversy over the teaching of ‘Intelligent design’ to children in the United States . Hitchens describes this sinister phenomenon well when he says:

‘Intelligent Design’ is a desperate ploy by desperate men who know they have lost the argument and are trying to hold up their crumbling Churches by resorting to dishonest word-play. It is a sign of the times: religion is losing its iron grip on humankind.

A recent survey conducted at Piermont College in California by Phil Zuckerman, a distinguished sociologist, puts the figure of non-believers at between five hundred and seven hundred and fifty million – bear in mind that this excludes such thickly populated countries as Brazil, Iran, Indonesia and Nigeria, for which information is lacking or patchy. This makes unbelief the fourth largest persuasion in the world, after Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. Most importantly, it is by far the youngest, with no significant presence in the West before the eighteenth century. Give atheism the same amount of time Christianity has had, about two thousand years, and there may be no theists left at all. One can only hope (and continue our rational inquiries and patient tests into the Universe).

The second question thrown up by the critics of the ‘New Atheists’ (a false term – they are part of a very old and very venerable radical tradition) is a strange one. They are accused of employing language that is too forceful; of being arrogant, of ‘offending’ people by their (allegedly) harsh tones and by doing the cause of atheism more harm than good by alienating moderates, who will be put off by their suppose ‘self-righteousness’.

This is a cowardly and ahistorical criticism. It is uttered by people who do not appreciate the great struggles of the past, when religion had to be forcibly separated from power. Religion is not a benign force which will give up its stranglehold on our species without a fight. It is run by cynical men who have seen an opportunity to grab power over the credulous and exploited it, thus causing immeasurable suffering to millions of people over the centuries. It is up to those of us who see things clearly to spread the fruits of reason to people who are still living in darkness. We can employ strident language and we can be just a principled and passionate as those we oppose. Remember, though, that the New Atheists have only published several books, they have not excommunicated anyone, or declared a jihad or launched a holy war. The secularist, reason-based way of doing things is undoubtedly the more civilized one.

If all this book does is inspire the non-believers and fails to persuade anyone to abandon their blinkered faith-based worldview, is it a failure? Avowedly not. Atheists can organize, we can campaign for secularism and the removal of religious indoctrination (not the teaching of religion, which is very important for an informed intellect) from schools. We can, and must, defend the iron wall that separates religion from state power; and we can celebrate our position as free human beings, capable of forging our own world through our own efforts – free from superstition and dogma.

The most beautiful chapter in Hitchens book is entitled ‘A Finer Tradition: The Resistance of the Rational’. It is a love letter not only to the great heroes of the past who have done so much for human freedom to think and speak, but to Reason itself. This is what Hitchens book is about, not so much an attack on the evils of religion, because that can and has been done and is obvious to anyone who cares enough to engage their brain on the subject. More so, it is an inspiring defense of Reason, and of humankind’s ability to apply its intellect to the world surrounding it. Using this precious gift, we can build a freer, more prosperous and just world. Hitchens thinks religion is the prime obstacle to this ‘New Enlightenment’; his new book makes an extremely strong case for this interpretation.

-posted by Adam

I have removed some of the Anti-Zionist piss-takes from the sidebar. Since that is exactly what I have become, I feel I cannot post on a blog which mocks and mis-represents my views.

-posted by Adam

I felt I just had to write something about this continuing farce, which makes a mockery of Academe's supposed dedication to the pursuit of truth and high standards of historical scholarship. I have read both The Case for Israel by the celebrated fraud Alan Dershowitz (who was on OJ's defence team) and Norman Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah.

One book is a well-written, scrpulously researched, utterly devastating and precise work of historical scholarship. The other is a fraud, devoid of any meaningful content and lacking in even basic standards of historical sourcing and footnoting.

Of course, Finkelstein's demolition of Dershowitz should have ruined the latters career. No scholar should hope to hold his place (and at Harvard, no less) when his work has been shown to be such a disgrace. Dershowitz copies entire sections from Joan Peters From Time Immemorial (itself a fraud, as Finkelstein has demonstrated in the past) with impunity. Dershowitz is not a scholar, he is a lackey for the Israel lobby in the United states. His book was not an attempt to write history, rather, it was a dishonest lunge to blacken the historical record and blame the victims for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Now Finkelstein, who (used) to teach at De Paul University, has been denied tenure for the forthcoming academic year. This is an utter disgrace, and it was not motivated by, as the letter which fired him states 'concerns touching upon his scholarship'. No, this a lie. Finkelstein has been part of a witch-hunt, organised by Dershowitz (who is still smarting from the destruction of his reputation) and others, to close down the debate about American Jewry's role in the continuing humiliation of the Palestinian people by the Israeli state.

It is that simple. Finkelstein is a brave man, and I fully support him during this time. I hope another University gives him the full professorship he so richly deserves. Dont let the bastards grind you down, Norman.

-posted by Adam

Greetings. Sorry for lack  of recent posting. I just read Hitchens latest anti-theist screed, and am currently drawing up a response. It will be posted this weekend. In the mean time, heres my responses to the book survey.

1. One book you have read more than once

Dune by Frank Herbert. I must have read this about 5 or 6 times from age 12-18. Nerdish? Of course, but it is so incredably imaginative and detailed. Ecology, politics, psychology, psychoanalysis, theology, war and dynastic struggles - this book has it all. I love it to bits and writing this has wanted me to read it again. Maybe I will.

2. One book you would want on a desert island

War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Rosemary Edmonds translation). The best novel I have ever read. Being alone on a desert island wouldn't matter, because with War & Peace with me I would have a complete picture of humanity to delve into whenever I felt lonely.

3. One book that made you laugh

Decline & Fall by Evelyn Waugh. Side-splittingly funny - completly shreds the pretensions of the British upper classes with merciless forensic wit. The account of the school sports day will stay with me forever.

4. One book that made you cry

The Noonday Demon by Andrew Soloman. It didn't quite make me cry, because I'm MACHO, but this momentous study of melahcholy contains some incredably sad portraits of individuals who are suffering. More importantly, it contains many uplifting and inspiring stories.

5. One book you wish you had written

Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens. A blistering defence of the disagreeable mindset, this is full of wisdom, experience and fierce passion. A guide of how to live with your heart on fire and your brain on ice - this is polemic at its finest. Hitchens is a very talented man, and anyone who wants to be a journalist can only be envious of his skills.

6. One book you wish had never been written

The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz. A pathetic farce. A plagarism of a fraud; bursting with errors and mistakes so brutally exposed by Norman Finkelstein. All this does is convince that the so called 'defenders' of Israel are not interested in real scholarship and historical writing, only in writing lies to defend the indefensible. THe real defenders of Israel should read this and weep. Is this kind of rubbish what passes for honesty in the partisan-for-Israel faction? A disgrace.

7. One book you are currently reading

The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzheitsyn. An extradinarily brave and detailed demolition of the moral case for Soviet Communism. Russian writers seem to have a special gift for grand, sweeping narratives. Solzhenitsyn combines this talent with his extensive research and interviews with hundreds of gulag survivors. THis is non-fiction at its best. I have 6 volumes to go, and am relishing it.

 8. One book you have been meaning to read

Tolstoy by Henri Troyat. I just havent found the time, damnit. Also, im incredably lazy. Must. Read. More.

-posted by Adam

I looked at technorati to find out who linked to us, in order to re-jig the blogroll. I discovered this Meme from August, in which we were tagged by Baby Washington. Well, better late than never. So here are my choices:

1. One book you have read more than once

Jennings goes to school by Anthony Buckeridge. Fossilised fishhooks! I loved the Jennings books between the ages of about 10 and 15; marvellous ripping yarns that have informed my writing style since. Recommended to small inky-fingered children everywhere.

2. One book you would want on a desert island

Orwell In Tribune by George Orwell. It's so damned fantastic, and has articles on everything from communism to toads to second-hand books. To think that he was writing these columns weekly, whilst writing 1984 and Animal Farm, almost makes me want to throw my laptop across the room in frustration. Inspirational would be a better word to describe it though.

3. One book that made you laugh

Incompetence by Rob Grant. You may recognise that name - he created Red Dwarf along with Doug Naylor. Either this or Colony is guaranteed to make you chuckle too often in public. Incompetence is set in "a Europe of the near future, in which nobody can be sacked on the grounds of age, sex, race or incompetence". I took this on holiday and read it three times in two weeks.

4. One book that made you cry

I honestly don't think any have. This isn't because I'm macho, I just usually avoid sad books which will make you cry. Instead, I re-read Incompetence.

5. One book you wish you had written

1066 and all that by W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman. This is the sort of alternative history I would love to write, but would probably lack the means - and the talent. Mostly, this is a parody of student's mistakes and malapropisms, such as "John was so bad that the Pope decided to put the whole country under an Interdict, i.e. he gave orders that no one was to be born or die or marry (except in Church porches)." My favourite-ist part of the whole book is:

THE INDUSTRIAL REVELATION

During these Wars many very remarkable discoveries and inventions were made. Most memorable among these was the discovery (made by all the rich men in England at once) that women and children could work for 25 hours a day in factories without many of them dying or becoming excessively deformed. This was known as the Industrial Revelation and completely changed the faces of the North of England.

6. One book you wish had never been written

Any by Richard Littlejohn. Do I have to pick one? Well, OK then.

7. One book you are currently reading

Peter Rex's biography of King Edgar, which is worth a read even if you aren't as unhealthily obsessed with tenth century Anglo-Saxon England as I am.

8. One book you have been meaning to read

The Future of Socialism by Tony Crosland. I know it's one of the intellectual cornerstones of modern leftish thought and all that, but I just haven't felt in the mood to really get stuck into it.

9. One Book That Changed Your Life

Has to be Reasons to be Cheerful by Mark Steel. It taught me many, many things. It told me that you can be funny and make a political point, and that being left-wing was the way to go. Although my views have evolved since reading the book, and re-reading it now I can see a few problems with what Mark Steel has to say, it would be stupid and wrong to play down the effect this book had on my life. And it, along with the Jennings books, my parent's puns and Red Dwarf, was probably among the main inspiration for my own particular sense of humour. Mark Steel may not have found another convert for the revolution in me, turned me into a political animal with his own lefty blog. And for that I'm eternally thankful.

10. Now tag five people

Hmmm.... how about Pub Philosopher, Don't Trip Up, Doctor Feelgood, Mission: Ramble and Adam. Enjoy!

Cory

As you can see, the blogroll has been cleaned up. New blogs have been added, old ones have been taken down, and some which have moved have been given the correct address.

There's also a blogroll for those linking to us. That list is correct as far as I know. If you link to us, or want to reciprocate links, please e-mail me.

coryhATbtinternetDOTcom

Thanks,

Cory