Saturday, December 13, 2008

Tony Blair = gutless coward and lousy Prime Minister

It wasn't until Tony Blair was out of office that he admitted he was Catholic. Oh, but not because he couldn't be a British Prime Minister, oh, no, that had nothing to do with it!

Likewise, as the article makes clear, he hid his religion from his constituents for the duration of his time as a politician. He was afraid of people dismissing him as a "nutter".

Yeah, Tony, that's the point. Your constituents needed to know how you made decisions so they could meaningfully support or oppose you. So you decided to engage in decades of deception because you know your real thoughts and feelings would be bad for your political career. And in some bizarre way no one seems the least bit, oh, I dunno, feeling weird or betrayed over this?

But mostly what I'm thinking is that Blair is a gutless coward. I mean, here's this thing, and if you listen to what religious people say it's the most important thing there is, and he hid it. And not because he and his family would be hurt or even disgraced. Tony Blair is rich, he's been rich for a long time. No, no, he hid his true feelings about what religious people claim is the most important thing there is because he was worried that people would call him a "nutter". I don't think being a Roman Catholic makes you a nutter - tho' switching from the Church of England to the Catholic Church is basically as exciting as switching from Coke to Pepsi, IMO - but I do think hiding it like he has and for the reasons he has makes him a hypocritical gutless coward.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rubbish!

It makes him someone who cares about whether the whole unwritten constitution should be changed just because of him.

There has never been an RC Prime Minister in this country and this is worth bearing in mind. Throwing the Queen, the state and the Anglican & Roman Catholic Churches some major problems by the election of a catholic PM with the power to choose Anglican bishops is not the Blair way, much as some like yourself think it is. He is not a natural confrontationalist.

Apart from that he is far more ecumenical than most of us, and has always been. Perhaps he'd have liked to stay in BOTH churches, or perhaps he hoped for an eventual 'merger' as he hoped for between the Lib Dems and the Labour party.

None of us knows the innermost, personal thoughts of others. I find this kind of facile judgement of others' motives deeply irritating.

Tony Blair, to me, is the very epitome of courage. In many ways.

None of us knows how strongly he felt about catholicism c/w anglicanism 25 years ago.

Life is a journey, cradle to grave, and many things alter our thoughts and opinions, as I am testament to.

Unknown said...

And the brave thing to do would have to been to admit that he was Roman Catholic and they pointed out the bigotry of the current system and work to change it - not hide and lie.

Hide and lie. Which is what he did, and it's gutless, and it's even anti-democratic because for a democracy to function the electorate needs to understand the methods through which their leaders are making decisions.