Saturday, January 06, 2007

A messianic glint on the screen

Last night, I felt at a loose end and considered, for the first time in several months, turning on the TV. But then I thought of the last time I'd turned on the TV and the time before that. So I didn't. The next time I feel that worm of an impulse, I'll also remember this.

Tony Blair is hunched over the basin at his posh new home in Connaught Square, central London. He is cleaning his hands with soap – at first gently, then more and more furiously. His wife, Cherie, appears at the bathroom door and watches her husband's actions with increasing horror. Robert Lindsay plays Tony Blair with a messianic glint in the eye. Like a man possessed, he is now scrubbing with a scarily obsessive vigour. Two words spring to mind: Lady Macbeth.
Wow! Original, or what?

It's a scene in Channel 4's upcoming The Trial of Tony Blair. It sounds like it's written by people who talk a lot, veering between well-heeled righteous indignation and resentment that nobody recognises that they would do so much better a job, all calibrated by the number of pints they've had.
"The world needs me, as Britain once needed me. But I've done Britain, Britain's sorted. I've outgrown Britain. I need a bigger stage now."
Said Tony. A moment before the Truth of his Evil was thrust in his face. Momentarily, he broke down. But no, he can never acknowledge the Truth. He'll wheedle out of this one, too.

Listen to the Producer, Hal Vogel.
In the face of mass corruption, the lampooning of the powerful becomes all the more important.

The great irony is that as one of his legacies, Tony Blair signed up to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. George W Bush refused to, presumably because he was worried about being called before it. He wanted to be able to do whatever he liked – pre-emptive strikes being one of his favourites.
Mass corruption? Where's he living? Pre-emptive strikes being one of his favourites? Yeah, and he wanted to prove that he's got a bigger dick than his daddy. Yeah, and it's all about oil, you know. And looking after Israel.

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