Is Brown & Blair in cahoots? "Britain has been left a poisonous legacy"

[Hoping4Change]

Britain has been left a poisonous legacy.
Theodore Dalrymple


<<snip>>

We who live in the Kafka-esque world of modern British politics, in which words, ideas and speeches are like eels that evade mental grasp because they are so slippery, are now accustomed to think that nothing is what it seems, or seems what it is. The thought that the supposed conflict between Mr. Blair and Mr. Brown is nothing but a cleverly, and deliberately, contrived diversion, to amuse the public as part of an overall political strategy of bread and circuses, and to disguise from it what the two of them have actually been up to for the past 10 years -- and the poisonous legacy with which they have now saddled the country -- is one that has occurred to many intelligent observers.

<<snip>>

A recent book, Plundering the Public Sector, alleges and quotes chapter and verse that the Blair-Brown government has diverted more than $140-billion of public money to private consultancies, which -- not surprisingly -- have often returned favours to the government. The book provides stories of such monumental governmental and private-sector idiocy that it could only be deliberate, actually more a form of sabotage to create further work for the government and consultancies, than incompetence.

Not a single new information technology system initiated by the Blair-Brown government has worked, despite the expenditure of untold billions. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that they were never intended to work, but rather to create vast profits for favoured companies, to reward supporters and to raise donations for the Labour Party.

<<snip>>

The Blair-Brown government has eroded the distinction between licit and illicit enrichment, and between the public and private sector, creating something close to a corporate state in which government controls almost everything and people fear to speak their minds because they are afraid of harming their pocketbooks.






http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060913.wxcoblair13/BNStory/specialComment/home

[LeftishBrit]

1. I'd take Theodore Dalrymple on anything with quite a few grains of salt

He is a right-wing journalist, who writes a lot for the very-Tory "Spectator", and would be against any Labourite.

That being said, Brown has served for many years in Blair's Cabinet, and has been a close, if not always willing, ally on many policies. He is much more responsible and less flaky than Blair; but he is very far from an ideal Prime Minister. But then we don't have a likely ideal Prime Minister at hand at the moment.

[Hoping4Change]

2. I was somewhat aware of 'rymple's politics but was rather

perplexed when he referred to "private sector idiocy".

What really struck me perhaps even disturbed me about myself is that I accepted the story about Blair-Brown at face value, I hadn't even considered the possibility of been played. If the goal was to ensure a Labor win next election, it would sense for them to play good cop, bad cop to create the illusion that a Brown Labor party would be something completely different.


p.s. I read somewhere that Blair was offered a position at Carlyle once he steps down. Have you read anything to that effect?