We Care a Bit

Here's a bit more on Blair's new We Don't Care initiative. Downing Street has had to "clarify" his position.

The prime minister's official spokesman later clarified that a general threat to safety would not be sufficient to avoid deportation but a specific threat could be enough in some cases.

Ah, I see. Why didn't he say that then?

Two things:

1. This latest example of classic Blairite half-baked authoritarian nonsense has lasted all of an entire afternoon before having to be "clarified". Not sure if that's a record but it's got to be up there. It's clear than Blair no longer gives the slightest consideration to the real world consequences of these dick swinging policy announcements (Did he ever? Ed.). The bunker mentality has taken over to a genuinely worrying degree. Government policies are now exclusively motivated by the media coverage they're likely to generate, particularly in the tabloids. This is not good.

2. The PMOS's version of the policy is slightly less objectionable than Blair's. Perhaps there is someone working in Downing Street who's managed to retain some tiny remnant of their humanity. If there is, their influence is sadly on the wane. These exemptions would apply in "very few exceptional cases," we're told. In most cases, the We Don't Care initiative will remain in effect. This isn't the sort of country I want to live in.

Just in case you've forgotten, here's another reminder that this is a direct result of the years of bumbling incompetence at the Home Office under New Labour suddenly becoming public knowledge.

Do you know what I'd like? I'd like to have a government which was more interested in making things work properly than in pandering to borderline xenophobic tabloid newspapers with an endless stream of tough new "policy initiatives". It's hard to imagine I know, but do try. It'd be fantastic, don't you think?

You might mock me for my naive utopian idealism but one day, one day, it might actually happen here.

Tags: News, Politics, Media, Tony Blair