And another thing…

EARLIER today I received two Direct Messages through Twitter, one of which was from @johnrentoul and both of which said the same thing: “haha. This you?” followed by a web link. The link didn’t seem to take me anywhere. And then I read this on Guido.

I messaged John to warn him that someone might be using his account for nefarious purposes and he replied that he was aware that something odd was going on and that he had reported it to Twitter.

Then, tonight, he DMd me again, this time with this:

So… glad his account’s back to normal, then.

TONY BLAIR’S biographer and Independent on Sunday columnist John Rentoul is the latest, belated addition to my blogroll.

His blog at the Independent Minds site is one of the very best by a full-time journo and as well as being very funny, is very politically sound. As a perfect example of this sound judgment, I recommend this post.

JOHN Rentoul is, of course, right to warn Labour against choosing class as an electoral battlefield.

Inevitably, there are those who relish the idea, who don’t need much encouragement to embrace class politics as they would an old, beloved yet recently ignored comfort blanket.

These would-be class warriors cite recent polling evidence that attacks on bankers and student politics-type proposals for a High Pay Commission are popular with the electorate.

I have absolutely no doubt that that is, indeed, what electors are telling the pollsters. Just as they consistently told pollsters in the run-up to the 1992 general election that they would be prepared to pay higher taxes in exchange for better public service.

As Rentoul rightly says of the more recent public reaction to the tax on bankers’ bonuses:

The bonus tax is popular in the short term (on the “tax anybody but me” principle), but I think it will have a negative effect on perceptions of Labour over the long term because it makes the party look as if it doesn’t like success.

Rather than using opinion polls as a basis on which to judge the wisdom of class politics, let’s take a rather different measure: general election results. In 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992, Labour promised tax increases (but only for the wealthy) and got hammered. In 1997, 2001 and 2005, we pledged not to increase the basic or higher rates of tax. And golly! Look what happened!

So, now that we have been running a consistent deficit in the polls for more than two years, what kind of logic dictates that we can win next time by reversing our previous election-winning strategy, by reverting to our old class-based ways?

No party that is seen to sneer at wealth, or which is suspected, because of its language, of treating the wealthy and the wealth creators as the enemy, can hope to win the confidence of the electorate.

Recent political history has established that as a fact. It’s perfectly understandable that, when economic times get tough and political times get tougher, that we should retreat into our traditional positions. There is certainty there, after all – the certainty that comes with drawing “dividing lines” on a map.

But comfortable though such a position may be, elections cannot be won from it.

I’VE ALWAYS hated “Gestapo” comparisons. You know the kind thing I mean: “That officer gave me a funny look – Honestly! It;s like Hitler’s Getapo!”

“Police state” is another one: “I was only doing 140, and they send me a court summons! It’s like Pinochet all over again…”

Not only are most of these comparisons plain silly, they’re incredibly offensive to those who actually lived through Nazi Germany or whose family were actually killed and tortured by Pinochet’s regime. It’s not just that the British police are being compared to the Gestapo: the suggestion is that the Gestapo were no worse than the Met. Or that people living in Britain have it as bad as Chileans in the 70s.

And so we return to the old “Is Tony Blair a war criminal?” nonsense, repeated today by Oliver Miles in the Independent on Sunday. As John Rentoul so sensibly points out, it’s number 180 in his series of “Questions to which the answer is ‘no’.”

If, by “war criminal”, we mean someone who led his country into a war that was unpopular with some people, then, yes, Tony Blair is undoubtedly a war criminal. But generally speaking, war criminals are people who deliberately ordered the targeting of civilians during a military engagement, or who either ordered, or did nothing to prevent, the execution or torture of their opponents. In other words, someone who “committed war crimes”.

No-one except the feeble-minded are seriously suggesting that Tony Blair is guilty of this second definition. And, as with “police state” and “Gestapo”, such accusations devalue the force of such accusations. The Gestapo? “Well, arguably some of their officers overstepped the mark, but most of them were quite helpful if you needed directions to the Reichstag.” Police state? “Not so bad, really, so long as you don’t mind being stopped and searched at railway stations once in a blue moon.”

War criminal? “Tony Blair’s as bad as Hitler, innit? I mean, taking Britain to war in Iraq after two votes in Parliament, then imposing democracy then withdrawing troops… I mean, two peas in a pod, eh?”

CHERIE Blair’s comments in the Independent on Sunday today ring true: that in 2003, Tony was probably 51-49 per cent in favour of committing British troops to Iraq.

When discussing the subject with non-politicians, they’re always surprised to hear that such important decisions can – and sometimes have to – be taken on a balance of argument, rather than on an overwhelming moral conviction one way or the other. Most opponents of the war I’ve spoken to tend to fall into that category; they are utterly convinced that the war was totally unjustified in any respect.

If only life – and politics – were that simple.

A few months ago, I wrote:

Within the question there is often an assumption that those of us who voted for war had the same single-minded conviction as those who opposed it. And it’s true that many who voted for the war did in fact have an absence of doubt that was shared by their opponents. I envied them, for I did not, and I still don’t.

I simply couldn’t comprehend how any MP could walk into either division lobby on such a controversial and complex issue without a glimmer of doubt in his mind, whichever lobby he was walking into. For my part, I wrestled long and hard with the various arguments, changing my mind about a dozen times about how I intended to vote. Those who marched against the war, who now hate everything about Labour and Tony Blair because their protests had no effect, will not understand such agonising. After all, war is either good or bad, right or wrong, yes?

No.

So on the night of the first vote, in February 2003, I supported the government, then went home with a very heavy heart, fretting in case I had made the wrong decision. A few weeks later, I had made up my mind and was probably two-to-one (in my head) in favour of invasion. It was then that I decided the time for equivocation had ended. If you’re going to make a decision, stick to it, defend it, and live with the consequences.

Amusingly, John Rentoul reckons Cherie’s comments represent just about all there needs to be said, so the Chilcott enquiry can pack up and go home.

One thing I trust that critics of Blair’s (and my) decision will bear in mind is that the UK never voted for an invasion and occupation of Iraq – that was going to happen anyway. The question before us was whether we should commit British troops to the US effort. But had the Commons voted “no” more than six years ago, it would have made precious little difference to Iraq’s fate.