Tue, Nov 25, 2003 page9

• Nothing but more trouble for Blair

  Bombs, demonstrations and serious mid-term drift -- and all the direct result of the prime minister's own decisions

  • By Polly Toynbee / THE GUARDIAN
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  The UK prime minister has waited for months now with a deadly certainty that the terror attacks would come.

  "When, not if," he warned spine-chillingly about the threat to Britain. Once he had decided to take the country to war, terrorist retaliation was certain and if ever there was a prime time to expect it, then it was now, during US President George W. Bush's state visit. The wonder is only that Britain has escaped for so long. London was fortified beyond endurance this week, but there will always be soft underbellies exposed to Islamist extremist fury. There is no defense against terror.

  

  ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

  So now Turkey has become another case of collateral damage in the spreading calamity of the Iraq war. It is tragic that it should be Turkey of all places to take the brunt of this revenge. Turkey, the actual existing model of moderate Islam. In their game of fantasy Middle East politics, how often Bush and Blair boasted they would turn Iraq into a "beacon" of democracy that would shine its light into every dark, feudal, corrupt and theocratic state across the region. What an irony if, instead, the Iraq war has dragged Turkey, a true beacon of modern Islam, down.

  Turkey tried to protect itself from contamination with the war by denying US troops access through its land to northern Iraq. But it was a natural target for al-Qaeda fundamentalists attempting to turn back the clock to an Islamic dark age. To them, Turkey's ever-strengthening democracy is a Western abomination.

  Visiting Istanbul this year to interview all parties and religious groups united in Turkey's determination to qualify for EU membership, I walked through the gates of the British consulate and met the consul general, Roger Short, who was, sadly, among the dead yesterday. It was well guarded but relaxed, without any sense that Istanbul was a dangerous place.

  Tayyip Erdogan's new government aims to take the country into Europe as a "synthesis" between East and West. With threatening neighbors -- Iran, Iraq, Syria and Russia -- it is hardly surprising Turkey seeks to turn towards Europe. So these bombs in Istanbul serve a sinister dual purpose for the Islamist fundamentalists -- to attack Britain, but also to blow up Turkey's ever-closer European ties and haul it back into the morass of Islamist extremism.

  These bombs made Nov. 20 one of the darkest days of Blair's prime ministership. As if that horror were not enough, too many other disparate pigeons came fluttering home to roost at once. Whichever way he turned, things looked black. They were no mere accidents, for everything that happened came as a direct result of his own decisions, all of them taken against the better instincts of most of his party.

  While the colossal anti-Bush demonstration swirled through the capital, and central London ground to a halt due to the visit of this unpopular president, inside beleaguered Westminster two bills ricocheted between the Lords and the Commons, the UK's upper and lower houses, in a near-meaningless battle. The unimportant substance of these bills had long become irrelevant.

  That a handful of complex fraud trials might be conducted without juries was, frankly, nothing that mattered much despite great protestations on both sides. Nor was the watered-down foundation hospital bill critical to either improving or destroying the UK health service. But these issues had become totemic simply because Blair wrongly attached too much symbolism to them, forcing them through without listening. The trouncing he got in the Commons was deserved. Although the Lords finally gave way to the superior right of the Commons on foundation hospitals, it was nonetheless a sharp reminder both of disquiet within his party and the constitutional mess in which he has left the House of Lords.

  Bombs in Istanbul are the only outcome from this presidential visit. Bush brought no gifts to thank his ally for taking so much damage to support this politically alien president. Nothing has been gained on the US' illegal trade tariffs; a promise to obey the WTO might have given Blair something to show Europeans the value of engaging with America. No sign was given of serious intent to intervene in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The president leaves unabated alarm that the US will cut and run from Iraq to suit the presidential election timetable and not the needs of Iraqis. This visit has been all downside for the prime minister.

  All these woes were avoidable. But there is something in the set of Blair's jaw these days that suggests he feels most sure of his own convictions when facing down the fainthearts on his own side instead of stopping to listen to them. No turning back. Sounds faintly familiar? There's a hint of Thatcherite hubris after six-and-a-half years in office.

  Yet, curiously, the other blow to strike him leaves him dumbstruck and devoid of defiance. This week Rupert Murdoch menacingly rattled the prime minister's cage with a bullying warning that he might shift the allegiance of his mighty newspapers to Michael Howard -- and disgracefully Blair said nothing. If ever there was a time for all that jaw-jutting pugnacity, this was it. But he said not a word in protest at the arrogance of the man. Here is a clear and present threat to democracy itself, when one magnate controlling 40 percent of Britain's newspaper readership and an ever-greater slice of TV plays cat-and-mouse with our elected government.

  He is a terrorist, too, operating by striking terror into the heart of politicians, forcing them all into craven subservience to his whims.

  Another unsavory media rogue tumbles, caught in financially questionable circumstances, after we have endured his aggressive free-market sermonizing all these years. Conrad Black's ignominy should have prompted the prime minister to get brave with these strutting brigands. Downing Street worries about public cynicism and how to get its message out beyond the distorting megaphones of the Tory press.

  But they never consider the valiant David and Goliath path. If he dared risk his political life by standing up to media baron bullies, that would reach the ears of the voters as a moment of truthfulness and bravery. But no. It will be backroom sycophancy again.

  Ahead lies nothing but more trouble. Blair has little to look forward to in the Hutton report. If the centerpiece of the Queen's speech is only university top-up fees, that is another fight that may not be worth the candle by the time it has been softened round the edges. Even if technically the right approach, it is well-nigh impossible to sell to those it affects most, raising not enough to make much of a difference to the universities.

  So where is the lantern to light us through the mid-term winter? Where has the vision thing gone? Alas, the sense of drift is yet more collateral damage from the Iraq war which seems to sap too much energy and strength from the government. Bombers must be defied, but who is tackling the global causes of bombing?

  And will the agenda for the next session set a new course with some clarity of purpose? No sign of that yet.
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