I was one of those who sat up until dawn on election night in 1997, persuaded that we would have a new society by the Millennium. Call me a naive, sentimental fool if you will, but I really believed that Tony Blair and new labour would create a fairer, more enlightened society. After all those years of sleaze and 'no such thing as society,' we could now look forward with optimism.
I was as wrong about that as TB was about weapons of mass destruction, but at least I didn't kill thousands of people with my mistake.
The highlight of that election night for many of us was seeing Michael Portillo lose his seat. God, how we laughed to see the pompous fall, the arrogant get his come uppance.
Now it turns out that Portillo is a thoroughly decent man. I still don't agree with some of his ideas but there's no doubt, he is intelligent articulate and civilised.
So what does that tell us? Perhaps, defeat changed Portillo and a little humility was good for his soul. In the same way, perhaps power corrupted Blair and made him arrogant and certain he was always right, despite all the evidence when he was wrong.
Perhaps I'm just a bad judge of character
Saltaire Sam
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2 comments:
Intelligent and articulate, maybe. But civilised?
A man who couldn't face questions from a sixth form in Bradford without first having questions vetted (and then selected according to the least troublesome) is not, I would suggest, an inspiring political figure.
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