By DAILY MAIL COMMENT Tony Blair is a leading candidate for the all-powerful European President Can there be any greater proof that Britain is no longer a democracy than the fact that Tony Blair is being seriously talked of as the first permanent President of the European Council? The justification for this according to our pipsqueak Foreign Secretary David Miliband is that Mr Blair can 'stop the traffic' in foreign capitals, the very quality so beloved of totalitarian dictators. Let's put the case against Mr Blair simply. For ten years, his corrupt regime lied and dissembled to the British people, in the process bankrupting the country. He took Britain to war on the basis of lies, possibly the most serious charge that can be laid against any leader. In doing so he ingratiated himself with America - the same America where he now makes himself obscenely rich. All that is bad enough, but his elevation in Europe would be an offence against democracy. Mr Blair - and Gordon Brown - pushed through the Lisbon Treaty without, as promised, putting it before the British people. They claimed a referendum wasn't necessary, because the Treaty was merely a tidying-up exercise, yet now it's so significant that the President must be a major figure. What utter cant. But perhaps even more offensive is that having conspired to create this allpowerful European President, Mr Blair should be a leading candidate, just as his party looks likely to be driven from office. What a travesty. But then we're only the voters. For months, politicians around the world have been talking about the need to restrain bank bonuses. And in America, at least, President Obama has appointed a pay tsar to cut the remuneration of senior banking figures. But Labour has done nothing, while a new bonus bonanza - and public outrage - has gathered momentum. Now the Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, has called for a ban on cash bonuses of over £2,000 at high street banks - anything above this level should be paid in shares. Mr Osborne's proposed interference in the free market may sit uncomfortably with true Conservatism, but these banks - which would not exist if billions in taxpayers' money had not been pumped into their coffers - are no longer part of that free market. We applaud Mr Osborne's courage in making himself unpopular with the City in order to tackle this scandal. Any police force that operates without the cooperation of the law-abiding majority will fail. But in Britain, policemen desperate to meet their targets are alienating the middle classes on whose support their success depends. Extraordinary figures now show that the number of Britons who are over 50 when they receive their first conviction or caution has risen by half under Labour. It beggars belief that the middle aged are suddenly turning to crime. They are being pursued over trivial matters like bin fines so that box-ticking police can meet their targets even if real criminals are getting away with blue murder. This is short-sighted and cynical. The police forces concerned should be ashamed of themselves. It's understandable that the Director General of the beleaguered BBC should be concerned about survival. But does anything illustrate the difference between the hard-headed private sector compared with the cosy feather-bedded public realm, than the fact that Mark Thompson spent the week of the BNP Question Time debacle playing soldiers on a Boys' Own survival course?Why President Blair would be a travesty
Last updated at 11:05 AM on 27th October 2009
Courage on bonuses
More from Daily Mail Comment...
Box-ticking police
Inaction man
Explore more:
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1223238/Why-President-Blair-travesty.html#ixzz0VDehypAT
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Posts
