We are seeing the political change which many have looked forward to, that of Tony Blair fixing the date for his departure, but it is unlikely that Gordon Brown will fix the date for another departure, that of troops leaving Iraq. Is there likely to be any major change in our political life… “more substance and less spin” is in itself a bit of spin unless the substance is actually delivered.
This of course begs the question of where we want to go. The last ten years has brought a minimum wage, economic stability, steady growth, steady increase in income for most, low inflation, increased public expenditure on the NHS, Education, early child development … the list goes on. The UK is definitely a richer place, so why the unhappiness, the feeling of discontent? Fifty years ago this pattern of stability and growth would have brought greater joy but now the views of the great majority are less parochial. Globalisation influences us all, primarily in our awareness of the complex world that we live in and the feeling of threat it generates. We know that our increased wealth is not built on a more stable world, indeed quite the opposite. The last ten years of growth and wealth have been built on the corporate manipulation of the new producers such as China and India, on a massive increase in private debt, a hand-wringing parsimony on the plight of the poorest, increasing reliance on oil and destruction of our environment.
Iraq has taken an iconic position in our lives because it represents three key issues that are fundamentally troubling us. It is about oil and the maintenance of our lifestyles; fear number one is that our energy will run out, the lorries will stop and the shops will be empty. In compensation we shop till we drop and build massive private debt. But is violent action the way to solve this? We know it is the worst way to solve this sort of crisis.
Iraq is about democracy and freedom from tyranny. Freedom and choice have become the new mantra, we want as much as we can get. It becomes a flag we can muster troops under bringing freedom and choice to the people of the world. It has replaced God and Country for the Western allies, but we know it is a false mantra. We built the tyrants in the cold war; far greater human rights abuses than Iraq go unheeded; where the tyrants remain our friends there is no quibble.
Iraq is about weapons of mass destruction, so great a fear that we cannot actually articulate it. Our denial of this risk allows us to consume more, to build up the private debt and the need to ring more out of the rest of the world to support us, for in our unconscious mind the mushroom cloud hangs over us. Yet our politicians know about it. They wish to keep these weapons and the short-term advantage they bring. They will fight with each other, to the brink if necessary to keep this supposed advantage. Yet we know that this position is not stable; it is not possible for us to arm ourselves yet keep this technology from others.
People get the politicians they deserve. They are simply extensions of ourselves, of our wishes and fears. They are human and fallible. We expect too much of them because we need them to solve the huge problem of global international relationships and give us the wealth and freedoms we want.
So Global Gordon, will you pursue the politics of the US right as Tony did, because it brought us immediate wealth; or will you take the longer term view and start to rebuild the United Nations and acknowledge that our long term security will only come through collective security, even if this means more sharing of the wealth. Perhaps the answer depends on our wishes; do pounds in the pocket come before global agreements?
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