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Originally Posted by Griff
Not being British, my main concern with the PM is that he is a horrifying war-monger who makes the best interest of his people subservient to his own political interests and by extention subservient to the interests of that clique of Americans who believe a US empire is good for the world.
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Most I agree with but IMO his involvement in war-mongering was/is an unfortunate side effect of certain aspects of his primary desire to be all things to all men - the pertinent ones here being his need to be seen as an ally to the USA, an international spokesman (European presidency ambitions), and an amazing leader capable of making difficult decisions (although some might want to swap positions on the words 'difficult' and 'amazing'). As one notable US president once remarked -'you cannot please all the people all of the time', and unfortunately Blair takes this too literally to heart, so that he doesn't worry that some (many) of his decisions leave him out of step with the majority, at odds with the electorate and totally ignoring his manifesto commitments. His popular/regular response when asked about such incidents is: 'people will have to make up their own minds', etc (see my 'what, no replies' entry for for the rest of his rhetoric) - a weak get-out but one he feels content to believe justifies his attitude and actions.
Equally if not more worrying is the fact that, not only are we gullible enough to be conned in the first place to elect the man to lead our country, but even after we become all too aware of his untrustworthiness, enough of the electorate vote appropriately to ensure that we suffer yet another four years of the same (perhaps that comment is a bit to close to home for some of the US members of this forum!)