H as anyone considered the serious possibility that the three most
determined Iraq war leaders will all be reelected? George Bush, and John Howard in Australia, are ahead in their polls, and Tony Blair is in a pretty good position for this stage of a Parliament, I have great faith in Mr Blair's ability to watch the way the hinge of history is swinging and get on the right side of the door. He knows that a Labour refusal to be the tough party in the 'war against terrorism' would eventually land his party in the same soup that unilateral nuclear disarmament drowned them in 25 years ago. By making Labour the antiterrorist party he leaves the Tories high and dry. Here is the simplest way to understand everything he does — he calculates how to make sure that the Conservatives will be left with nothing to say on a subject, and acts accordingly. It may not be a noble principle of leadership, but it seems to work. I think it will succeed one more time.
TheBlair speech here was very full of talk of leadership. No one is more autobiographical, not to say egocentric, than our Prime Minister. 'I don't think that as human being, as a family man, I've changed at all,' he confided in the listening millions. But I have changed as a leader. I have come to realise that caring in politics isn't really about "caring". It's about doing what you think is right and sticking to it.' This reverie was to serve his argument about Iraq. But another of Mr Blair's skills is not to display any leadership at all. His government is now forcing through a complete ban on hunting by semi-constitutional means, but his speech didn't contain a word about it and his spin is that he wishes there would be a compromise. He could effect a compromise overnight, but he won't. This is the leadership pioneered by Pontius Pilate.
Arriving here in our hunt bus, we have the rather thrilling experience of 'social exclusion'. Huge numbers of police — the Sussex men much better behaved than the Met boys in Parliament Square — stand in rank after rank to keep us back. Powerful and sometimes rich people in suits stare pale-faced out at us from the windows of heavily guarded buildings. MPs with enormous pensions scurry past terriermen on £8.000 a year. Gerald Kaufman scuffles with protesters. I particularly enjoyed a scene of a fat Welsh politician and his entourage encountering some of his pro
hunting compatriots ('Don't you dare touch me!' etc.). The Daily Telegraph was holding a fringe meeting at the Thistle Hotel to be addressed by Alan Milburn. At the last minute, Mr Milburn said he couldn't come because of the nasty rough people on the promenade. Won't Cabinet ministers have to be a little bit braver if they are going to win the 'war against terrorism'?
any welcome the fact that a delegation from the Muslim Council of Britain flew to Iraq to try to secure the release of Kenneth Bigley. Few noticed the terms in which their appeal for that release was couched. The terrorists should let Mr Bigley go, it said, because he was an innocent 'victim', just like the residents of Fallujah when under American attack. Does it follow from that that if Mr Bigley had been a British soldier rather than an engineer (and therefore not 'innocent'), the MCB would not have called for his release? Aren't there some Muslims who have been pretty active in oppressing the residents of Fallujah? The MCB has just produced an interesting pocket guide for British Muslims called 'Know Your Rights and Responsibilities'. In many ways, it is a sensible document, talking about working for the common good and saying that 'averting a terrorist attack is an Islamic imperative', but it is also politically contentious. It speaks of 'the misconceived wars against Afghanistan and Iraq', saying that these have contributed to prejudice against Muslims. It does not mention that the actions of some Muslims might have had something to do with these fears. Besides, what business does a guide to a religion's rights and responsibilities have announcing a policy on particular wars? Muslims such as the guide's authors may indeed be genuinely 'moderate', but there are strings attached to their civil co-operation.
my uncle, who is a bishop, came to stay at the weekend. He was on the way to address the Fellowship of Christian Motorcyclists, of which, being a keen biker himself, he is president. Even the laid-back world of biking, though, is subject to religious schism. I gather that as well as the Fellowship there is a rival, more evangelical organisation called Riders for the Lord.
What does the phrase 'Christian charity' mean? A very expensive advertising campaign is currently running in the papers. It depicts a fat bald man in a suit. He has a pig's snout, but in other respects bears a presumably unintended resemblance to Greg Dyke. The man, who has pound signs sticking out of his breast pocket, is sitting on the shoulders of a black woman labourer who holds a hoe. The ad says, 'Our government claims free trade is the solution to the world's problems. But that's exactly what you would expect them to say when it allows them to profit. It's the millions of farmers in poorer nations who, with free trade forced upon them, are unable to sell their produce....' The advertisement is placed by Christian Aid. It makes no mention of the fact that tariff barriers and dumping, rather than free trade, damage poor countries. It caricatures Western governments and businessmen with a racist crudity which, if applied to Africans, would get it into trouble with the law; and it goes out of its way to attribute only bad motives to those governments. What is Christian about any of that? Please don't give anything to Christian Aid.
One of the most remarkable characteristics of Nigel Nicolson, who died last week, was his absolutely genuine enthusiasm for tourists. When they arrived at Sissinghurst, he loved to welcome them and tell them stories about his parents, the house and the garden. He would show, for example, how one avenue in the garden was wiggly because he, as a teenager, had held the string which was supposed to measure it straight and had wandered out of true. He didn't mind a bit when visitors poked their noses into the windows of his private section of the place. He had no financial motive for this, since all takings go to the National Trust. No, it was just a generosity of spirit, a sort of secular saintliness which put a greater value on what is shared than on what is owned.
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