How politics works
It’s all about making the hard choices. Here’s an object lesson from the Minister of Justice:
Jack Straw, the justice secretary, has privately expressed doubts about Gordon Brown’s determination to insist on 42 days because he fears it could lead to further tensions in the Muslim community and paradoxically could lead to less intelligence being supplied to the authorities from Muslim sources. Straw, who has a big Muslim community in his Blackburn constituency, will be publicly backing the policy and voting for the government, a source said yesterday. But this does not mean he agrees with the necessity to do it. He has remained conspicuously silent in public in pushing the policy.
Hmmm. Further tensions in the Muslim community, less intelligence being supplied to the authorities, or his job. What’ll it be? How to weigh a possible terrorist outrage against Straw’s contribution to the country? How many dead commuters equals one man of destiny?
Posted on April 14th, 2008 at 8:28 am
| See also • Man of Straw (sorry) • Tony giveth, Hazel taketh away • On the level? |
Permalink • Trackback • Subscribe By Email • Print This Post • • • |
|
Filed under T.W.A.T., The home front, UK politics |
Justin: the point of that quote is two-fold: (1) as the New Statesman once put it, ‘Jack Straw is always right’; (2) this is the same trick Straw pulled in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Also, given Hazel Blears’ legendary doublethink of endorsing hospital closures while going on an anti-closure picket line in her constituency, there really shouldn’t be any surprise here.
We have to continue to be surprised. Weary acceptance is not an option.
I’d be more surprised if they did/got something right: Straw’s arse-covering is more annoying than surprising, but then - as John Lydon said - ‘anger is an energy’.
Weary acceptance is not an option.
Not so much an option, more a way of life.
ejh’s last blog post..Everybody loves a bank letter
Don’t say that or the turrist will have won.
Jack Straw - even though he opposes the policy in his conscience - will press ahead and ratify the proposals even though he has reservations. Thank heavens for elected representatives!
Antipholus Papps’s last blog post..Onward. Further!
less intelligence being supplied to the authorities from Muslim sources
That one needs to be taken with a wry smile.
jameshigham’s last blog post..[thought for the day] monday evening
How so?
As I was saying on my blog yesterday, Straw is caught between a rock and a hard place. He can’t stand Brown but he can’t say that he can’t stand Brown.
It’s a joy to watch.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
I’m not so sure. I think Straw’s like HAL from 2001. He’s got to process all these various conflicting scenarios but he’s not up to the job and his urge to self-preservation overrides everything else. He finishes up looking like a bastard and doing awful things.
I’d certainly pay to see him singing “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do.”
ejh’s last blog post..Everybody loves a bank letter
Odd thing about Kubrick, when I think about it. For all his greatness, the only emotionally engaging moments I can recall in his works involve the closing down of a computer and the mass psychology of a crowd.
ejh’s last blog post..Everybody loves a bank letter
I’ve always found the ape-man’s inspiration and the ending more emotionally involving, myself. There’s also the battle scene and execution in Paths of Glory, the last two sequences of Barry Lyndon, and no doubt one or two others.
Philip’s last blog post..Situation Normal: All Firmly Upright
Don’t forget his choices of music. I was always a sucker for this one.
Well, I guess it depends upon which emotion you’re talking about being engaged. Full Metal Jacket, The Shining and A Clockwork Orange all contain emotionally charged scenes that left me feeling very affected indeed. He didn’t do sentimentality, I grant you, but if a person wasn’t emotionally engaged by Private Pyle’s suicide in FMJ then I suggest the problem may be with them, rather than Kubrick.
Jim Bliss’s last blog post..Hey Boy, Hey Boy
if a person wasn’t emotionally engaged by Private Pyle’s suicide in FMJ then I suggest the problem may be with them, rather than Kubrick.
Well, another and slightly less presumptuous view would be that Kubrick never really shows us or interests us in Pyle as a human being with personality: it’s all about the horror of the training.
ejh’s last blog post..Everybody loves a bank letter
Apologies for any presumption… it was more a turn of phrase than anything, really. But still, my point is that it kind of depends on the emotion you’re talking about. It’s precisely the dehumanisation of Pyle (and the others) that stirred emotion in me, and his suicide represents the ultimate — and in my view poignant — consequence of that dehumanisation.
Jim Bliss’s last blog post..Hey Boy, Hey Boy
But the thing is, we never see Pyle as a person, as an individual, as opposed to somebody being bullied.
There’s a similar aspect to The Shining by which the only one of the three people we really see as an individual (as opposed to as a terrified person) is Jack Nicholson.
Now my regard for Kubrick as a director is immense - I can’t think of anybody who’s made so many great films* of entirely different types - so I’m not actually saying this as a criticism. It’s not something missing from his films so much as something interesting about them. I think that he’s really interested, as a director, in alienation from one’s circumstances and surroundings and much less interested in human individuality and warmth.
[* but not Barry Lyndon, which is desperately boring]
ejh’s last blog post..Everybody loves a bank letter
Barry Lyndon? I’d stopped caring hours before.
ejh’s last blog post..Everybody loves a bank letter