King Blair

Bliar
Originally uploaded by londonprotests.

The United Kingdom has the parliamentary elections tomorrow. Fascinating, absolutely fascinating. I have had a crush on British politics already for a while. Or to be honest, my fascination is mostly on one person: Tony Blair.

I know he is heavily criticised and very often for a good reason. There have been heavy misjudgements during his eight years in power. But still, I find him being one of the politicians that I would like to see more. I mean politicians with a vision, beliefs and charisma. I guess everyone who has seen him talking live knows what I am talking about.

Blair´s recent interest in Africa really raised his points in my mind. If you do not know what I am talking about, check for instance this speech for the African Union.

I made a dive into the core of of New Labour the other day by reading Geoff Mulgan´s brilliant article in the latest Prospect (Prospect is my favourite magazine at the moment). Mulgan was the head of Blair´s Strategy Unit. In Prospect he writes in a brilliant manner about his views on the power of nation states in today´s world. I heard Mulgan live a few months back here in Amsterdam and I was really impressed.

I wrote a month ago for the Finnish weekly Suomen Kuvalehti an article about Blair and rhetorics. As political scientist Henri Vogt said in the interview, Blair is one of the most gifted public speakers of today´s politics. And to me - as someone who has graduated from rhetorics - that already is a reason for admiration. Good rhetorics is not about cheating your public, it is respecting your public. I found a fabulous quote about this subject this other day. It is from John Wilkins: Obscurity in writing is commonly a proof of a darkness in the mind.