Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

The Irish government is collapsing before our eyes, like some fictional administration in a rather weak soap.

The Irish people deserve better than this. Their country is at the point of financial dysfunction, their banks are bust and they are in debt up to their necks.  But they are patriotic and determined, they are absorbing cuts in their standard of living and hardships in everyday life, thought long gone in the past. They have faith in their country and they have faith in each other. They are putting their best foot forward, are determined to bounce back and in the end will prevail.

But first they need a government. They must be given the opportunity to elect one. Without further delay.

What a performance! He will become one of the most discredited politicians of history and for good reason.

It is all very sad. He had such promise and there were such high points, the Good Friday Agreement being perhaps the highest. He then became addicted to war, entirely without any strategic grasp, as an instrument of foreign policy; the means to achieve the end he favoured, driven by a messianic delusion that it, therefore he, was right. This is the the mantra of fundamentalists down through the pages of history. It is just as destructive proclaimed by a Christian as by a Muslim. Both are at variance with the core teaching of their faith.

Now he wants to attack Iran, unless Iran does as we say. Many were the honest people in this country and the world at large, who were outraged at his proclamation yesterday at the Chilcot Inquiry. He shows himself to be not just a knave, but a fool as well. We do not have to recite the untold consequences of such a monstrous plan, nor speculate upon the years, even decades, of upheaval, bloodshed and insecurity which would follow.

If Ed Milliband wants to move on from New Labour to put Labour on a recovery path, he might be wise to cut adrift altogether from Tony Blair. Most of his party already have.

This story has now really taken off, yet I think it is of much greater interest to the media than to ordinary people. Evidently the police saw an enormous can of worms, involving various levels of spying on celebrities to pick up gossip to sell more newspapers, and thought they had better things to do with taxpayers’ money.

I am inclined to agree. I think we expect the police to act as a regulatory authority, which is not their function. There are too many new crimes and too many regulations with a criminal sanction. The police are there to protect us from harm and abuse, and when that fails, to catch the guilty. We should let them get on with that. The price of celebrity, for which the rewards in some cases are mind boggling to ordinary mortals, is to lead a life where all is revealed to the public eye through the media. That is what celebrity is.

These celebrities will have their tiffs and trysts, which keep their lawyers in third homes, expensive schools and so forth, but the rest of us can get on with our day. We do not want our police diverting resources from catching terrorists to chasing after voice mail hackers. Who cares what messages are left for these people anyway.