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May 14, 2007

Blair, Brown and ongoing foreign policy failures

If you haven't been living under a stone lately, you probably know that Tony Blair has announced that he will soon be going as UK Prime Minister; Gordon Brown is as near as possible to a sure thing for the replacement. This therefore seems like a good time to look back over some of what Blair and Brown have been responsible for - in particular, looking at Iraq and international politics.

Blair is definitely an optimist - hoping to build up a Foundation working to improve interfaith understanding (especially between Christians, Jews and Muslims). Robert Marshall-Andrews (a Labour MP) has argued on Have I Got News for You that - of all the billions of people in the world - only one person is less qualified for that job than Blair (I'm not sure if he meant to refer to Bush or Bin Laden). Marshall-Andrews may have been a bit harsh - but I really don't like Blair's chances.

Speaking on Iraq, Brown's language is very interesting: he stated that "I accept that mistakes have been made". Given the significant failures in Iraq, this does not seem terribly apologetic - the issue for Brown is not that 'mistakes have been made' in Iraq, but that (as Chancellor) he has played a key part in making these mistakes, signing the cheques which have funded, and continue to fund, Britain's contribution to the violence there.

Brown once argued that, "[i]nstead of spending billions on weapons of death like Trident, we'll use our resources to help those most in need". Now he not only supports the funding of a replacement for our Trident nuclear weapons system - he has also played a key role in funding the weapons of death which have been contributing, and still are contributing, to the violence in Iraq.

Perhaps Brown's next policy will be to up spending on the missiles, bombs and bullets of life and vitality.

Posted by jon_mendel at May 14, 2007 01:26 PM

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