A Brief Scrutiny of The Phantom Blair

Every day we are supplied with NEWS.

This often involves the sudden appearance of a Blair. He is to be seen proceeding, with just a touch of modest swagger, a wide, engaging grin, doing up the middle button of his jacket as he goes, towards some foreign bigwig, who is awaiting his arrival without perceptible enthusiasm.

We have seen him seated uneasily in a weirdly gaudy tent with 'Mad Jack' Gaddafi, who lounges with complacent nonchalance, murmuring to himself, 'There, what did I tell me, they're all pilgrimising to make supplicatory obeisance to the Great Wag of the Desert, whose camel outgribes the camels of all lesser pretenders to legendary greatness as the sun outgribes the fading moon.'

We have seen Blair the Benefactor striding into the Washington White House with Gooseberry Bush. For all he achieved he might as well have been in a Green House with a Plum Tree. He does not realise this.

It may be that he whisks about the world like a choir-boy on a magic carpet because he is uneasy about his reception at home and indeed is not sure if he has a home, because without the illusion of power he is bereft of purpose, and nobody, not even 'I Will Go On and On and On' Thatcher could remain in Downing Street for ever.

Let us examine some the characteristics of this strange phantom.

1. If a problem arises he writes a responding policy on the back of an envelope, leaks the policy to the Press and then loses the envelope. A few days later another even more unfeasible policy occurs to him. It contradicts the first policy, but this doesn't matter because after leaking the Great Idea to the Press he loses that envelope too.

All this tends to bewilder the stooges, creeps, clones and cronies who wish to oblige their leader by carrying these policies into the real world and dumping them somewhere, if only they knew exactly where how, why or when.

2. Another of his commanding gestures is to announce that he will take personal charge of a tricky and troublesome matter. He calls aloud for a 'summit' on which as chairman he will boldly stand - the Summit is a gathering of creeps, cronies, stooges and clones - then buzzes off to Ulan Bator to explain the Great Mission of Gooseberry Bush to the local nomads. Matter, charge and solution have slipped from his cranium like soap from the hand of a drunken sailor.

3. He likes informing us with excessive sincerity that he 'believes passionately' in some idea or other. Unfortunately, to believe passionately in some idea does not mean that the idea is useful, true or sensible. Besides, some other powerful posturer may have a directly opposite idea in which he also passionately believes and the clash may result in conflict, crisis, catastrophe or any number of other things beginning with c.

4. As each month passes he looks and sounds more like a preacher in an elevated pulpit declaiming himself to be the Prophet of the Glorious Way - which Glorious Way changes direction with unnerving frequency.

The solution is (I wrote this on the back of an envelope) to send to Mr Blair, in a dream, a sage in a sober robe who will remind him that the answer to all and everything is 42. He will then write 42 policies on an envelope and lose them.

If as a result of such a visitation Mr Blair begins to show signs of increasing wisdom - such as ceasing to walk with just a touch of modest swagger, to grin quite so widely, to fiddle so much with the middle button of his jacket, or to trip off every Tuesday to the see Gooseberry - we will deliver unto him a Mop with our good wishes for a joyful and merry retirement.

But may Providence intervene to prevent 'Something-of-the-Night' Howard from roaming the world in search of his turn to wear the mantle of the Great Prophet.

.

P.S.

A.
Envelope 1. No referendum
Envelope 2. Referendum.

B.
Envelope 1. Keep pubs open all night. Drink on, boys!
Envelope 2. Ban smoking in pubs. Smoke Not, Sinners!
Envelope 3. Encourage gambling - Yippee!

© JBP & Winamop. April 2004

Read old page 94s here.