Only 1.8 million people tuned in to watch Blair last night, even though it was shown twice on a channel received by every set in the land. So, presumably, fewer than a million per showing. I saw about half of the repeat after Newsnight, but I fell asleep. I cannot have been the only one.
It wouldn't really do to say that I don't know how it ended. We all know how that one ended. I wish that I had watched the last episode of GBH over on Yesterday, because I managed to miss that at the time and I have done so ever since. I would have made myself stay awake for that.
Still, it was interesting to hear him admit what we in these parts have always known, that there never was a Granita deal. How much more of the made-up "history" of New Labour will also now collapse? After yesterday, all of it, one trusts.
It has been known since the time that Blair never really wanted to ban hunting. His vote for a licensing scheme saw him in the same lobby as John Reid and Hilary Armstrong, who was Chief Whip at the time, but in the opposite one to most of his party's MPs. Nor is it news that Blair was an alcoholic. If you cannot cope without the booze, then that is what you are, even if you only have a stiff gin and tonic before dinner and half a bottle of wine with it.
But fill in the third line of this triangle: Blair supports the Coalition's cuts, Blair supports David Miliband.
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The interesting thing about Blair's alcohol relevation, and I'm in the camp that says his usage wan't that bad (especially compared to the norm for British pols), is that his government moved towards to changing the definition of alcoholism to essentially be that of binge drinking.
ReplyDeleteNow dependency and binge drinking are not the same thing. You can do the middle class, a few drinks after every workday thing and become dependent. Many binge drinkers find the activity fun -its not to everyone's taste- but then go through long periods of abstinence because they have to or they just get tired of drinking.
You can make a serious argument that the health and social effects of binge drinking are worse, even much worse, than mild dependency. You can also argue that a soceity where everyone has three drinks after work, every day, is a better society than a Scandinavian or Japanese style drinking culture. But its not quite accurate to conflate the two.
Thank you very much for that. I couldn't agree more.
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