Britain, Blair and Bloody-Mindedness...

There is the old saying that every country gets the government it deserves, one way or another.

One must ask, then, what the UK has done to deserve Labour. Or, more exactly what it did to deserve Blair.

But not Tony: in this case, it's Cherie.

While Tony Blair is to be admired for a number of his actions, his wife ...

Well, simply read this.



Ye gods.

The idea that the wife of a former head of state would take on a case that is aimed at forcing that state to pay for actions taken 50 years ago is ... mind-boggling.

Words fail me: let us put this in perspective, if we can.

For the American reader: this would be as if Hillary Clinton, instead of becoming Secretary of State, had decided, instead, to file suit against the United States of America for treaty violations against native Americans.

While this would be a nice fantasy for the left - finally, one of their own speaking "truth" to power! - it would be, effectively, a direct attack on the country that her husband had served - regardless of what one might think of his Presidency, President Clinton did that - and to which they were, in their own (and sometimes convoluted) ways, and are, dedicated. Politics (should: the Democrats have had problems with this) ends at the water's edge: there is no honor in serving those who would damage the country, and justice, if that is what is sought, is not served by having the President's wife take up the call for a foreign power. This is, in the realm of American politics, simply inconceivable. Period.

But not, apparently, for Ms. Blair:

The barrister wife of former British prime minister Tony Blair will represent a group of Australian Aborigines suing the British government over nuclear testing on their land, a report said Saturday.

Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement spokesman Neil Gillespie said Cherie Blair had been engaged by a group from Emu Field, in Australia's red desert centre, who are seeking compensation over 1953 atomic tests by Britain.

Five cases had been lodged in the British courts over illnesses allegedly linked to the fallout from two nuclear weapons exploded in the Great Victoria Desert in October 1953.

The thing is: these were addressed by the courts in the past (1985, 1993), and the only thing the folks involved are really looking for is simply more money.

For the wife of the former leader of the country to take on foreign interests - and these are foreign interests - and to sue the government that her husband, at one point, led, is ... indicative of the mind-set, I fear, that dominates the Labour movement in the UK.

Which means that the idea of politicians owing loyalty to King and Country is as outmoded as working to earn a living. Rather, it's pandering to your internationalist base, much like preferring to live off the dole rather than work an unskilled job.

What ever has happened to Great Britain?