GaryP

I was listening to Fresh Air yesterday on NPR .

Terri Gross was interviewing a journalist who spent a month shadowing Tony Blair during the build up to the Iraqi War.

He related that there was much disagreement among Blair and his advisors as to whether he should end his speech announcing the start of the war with "God Bless You".

Apparently all of his friends told him NOT to say it because they were concerned with the perception that Muslims (and others) might have regarding a "holy war".

I just thought it really illustrated the difference between most of the "western world" and the US when it comes to CSS.

dangin

I heard that too. Allegedly Tony looked at all his aides who were telling him not to say it and he said "you certainly are a godless lot", (it's interesting that he hadn't known that before these are his aides. In the white house your faith is public knowledge because of why or why you don't attend the bible studies) But back to Blair, one of his aides is Jewish, and he said "I'm not godless, I'm a jew" another aide said "That's a different god", and then Tony Blair said "No, it's not".

It sounds like one of my lunch time arguments with my coworkers.

Mendeh

That's an example of Blair and his aides cynically working out how best for him to present himself. I've never ever heard any MP end a speech on a religious note. On the other hand, being a practicing Christian is part of Blair's carefully calculated public image, and for many people "believes in god" carries with it the assumption "has a conscience". The invasion of Iraq received a lot of hostility in Britain, and Blair tried to counterweight this hostility by presenting himself as highly principled and honest, a leader of the greatest integrity. A spoonful of nice-guy helps the policies go down...

Shadowy Man

I have never figured this one out.

Of course the Jewish god is a different one from the Christian one. The Jewish god didn't have a son!!

dangin

Yeah but see the all perfect, all knowing god is the same god throughout the three abrahamic religions. He just keeps upgrading the scripture, and his appearance from time to time. See he perfectly planned to change what he perfectly said originally with something just as perfect but more perfectly appropriate for new times and new social realities. See it all makes sense.

DMB

Mendeh: I think that unfortunately Blair is serious about his religion. He is probably the first prime minister to be so for at least a generation.

As a result he has given in to church and other religious bodies' lobbying and is all for legislation that gives privilege to religions. See the National Secular Society website for up-to-date details.

It used to be the Tory party that was intimately linked to religion, while the Labour party harboured a lot of atheists and agnostics. Now New Labour seem to be moving away from any ideal of a secular society.

contracycle

Pity the roll-out was so spotty, though. Shabby work.

Mendeh

Hello DMB,

It's nice to be back here again - all the A-levels are over now, so I've finally got some freedom for what seems like the first time in ages.

I certainly agree with you that Blair is seriously religious, and that this does intrude on his thinking, but I do think there's a large political dimension to this as well. The present government does everything it can to puppeteer our opinions to the greatest extent: it has become expert at public manipulation through spin. Look at its handling of the whole Gilligan scandal, for example, or the care it takes over keeping Blair as far from the shit as possible (so that he's over the other side of the world when the story breaks that actually number 10 and the MOD did leak Dr. Kelly's name to the press, and that actually they were lying when they said that they "did everything they could to protect his anonymity").
I do wonder just how far Blair's motives for, for example, this, might not have a large public relations dimension to them as well as an overt sense of religious mission.

DMB

I agree, Mendeh, that PR, or rather cultivation of selected voters, comes into this. In general, immigrants have tended to vote Labour, if they voted at all, and so, for example, New Labour tries very hard to appeal to muslims. But if Blair were a secular PM, he would see the unfairness of his treatment of the secular majority.

Mind you, he doesn't seem to be all that keen on fairness at all. Having created separate parliaments or assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, he persists in refusing to consider an English parliament, and there was the recent flagrant case of the vote for foundation hospitals for England being passed only with the help of Scottish MPs at Westminster.