Words I never thought I'd say.

Some time ago, whilst browsing through second-hand books, puddingcat came across a copy of “New Britain: My Vision for a Young Country” by Tony Blair. Written in 1996, before his first election victory, it was a collection of his thoughts and speeches about what Labour would do if they got into power.
Reasoning that my blood pressure is a little low at the moment, and my recent sunny demeanour is entirely at odds with my surly nature (plus she's been trying to give me a nervous twitch for years), she bought it for me and I, always enjoying as I do the feeling of the veins in my temples throbbing, set about reading it.
My original intention had been to go through and catalogue the broken promises, the lies, the inaccuracies, the mendacious spin which so characterise the current administration of this land. Needless to say, as I went through the book turning over the corner of each page containing a later-unfulfilled promise or undertaking, very soon the corner of every second page was turned over. I’m not joking when I say that. For the first third of the book, literally every one or two pages has a note, an addendum, or other reminder by me that, yes, here’s another unfulfilled howler from old ‘straight kinda guy’ Tony.
As I read further, my enthusiasm for the task diminished; not because I was taking potshots at a lot of fish in a vanishingly small barrel (which I was), but because my anger was slowly replaced by a new sensation. Dawning horror. You see, the more you read of his writings, the more you come to realise that Tony actually believed this load of old nonsense. He really, genuinely believed at time of writing that he was the man to usher in a new golden age of peace and prosperity, in which everyone would hold hands, sing a song, and love one another – and be led in that singing by head honcho Tony, smug grim plastered all over his eminently punchable phiz.
I suppose I ought to be shocked that he’d gone 14 years (he entered Parliament in 1982)in a hive of realpolitik and managed to hang onto his idealism. I mean - how did he manage that? Such preposterous naivety should surely have been burned out by the reality of Westminster. But I’m not horrified. Instead I think about what an awful process of realisation he must have had that he cannot achieve his dreams and I understand why he looks so tired, irritable and burned out in his public appearances.
I feel sorry for Tony Blair.

I bet you never thought you’d hear me say that, did you? But I do, I pity him. Somehow he managed to keep the youthful idealism which so characterises the student common-room politics of inskauldrak, raggedhalo and others long after real-life experience should have stripped them away with the ongoing effects of reality. Thinking back over his seven year tenure I suppose it might be possible to chart his process of disillusionment. It mystifies me how he could have managed to hold onto these beliefs. I suppose that that sense of overwhelming self-satisfaction and superiority which he presents must have led to him being able to dismiss others caught up in the web of reality. “They’re little people,” he must have thought. ”They lack my superior socialist principles. I shall succeed where they have failed because I’m just gosh-darn better than them.” That delusion must have kept him going all these years, and now it has been shown up in the harshest possible light as the fallacy it was.

Of course, I wouldn’t want you to think that pitying him makes me like him one iota more. He’s still the same mendacious, oily little creep that he was seven years ago. He’s still the same insincere, glib little bastard who tried to turn the funeral of Princess Diana into a party-political broadcast. But now he’s a disillusioned insincere, glib little bastard. His fall must have been hard.
The kindest thing we could do is vote him out.*

^{*And if I were in charge, this is what you'd get.}