World on hold for Blair's private battle

Independent

After several days of terrorising both his supporters and the opposition in an effort to gain support for draconian laws, Prime Preacher Blair has now put international business aside in order to recall ministers from foreign parts just to get their votes. The financial expense and political price of such behaviour is absurd - surely votes could be cast by proxy or electronically? The biggest folly is that even if our self-consumed leader gets his way and scrapes through the proposed legislation, the House of Lords are almost certain to reject it anyway.

It will be back to stage one and history will simply show British cabinet ministers abdicating their other, more important, responsibilities for a couple of days.

As our neighbour France shows all the signs of descending into a modern-day revolution, Britain's media eyes have been focused on the China state visit. Whilst "Free Tibet" and other civil rights protesters put on a worthy show, democracy and freedom were wholly absent from the agenda. This was iconic intercourse designed to consolidate pre-eminence in the power structure of the 21st Century. China may not offer any political menu to it's citizens, but it has proved a dab hand at capitist method and the market-driven world economy. Indeed, it bankrolls the vaster part of American debt! Britain may still have a degreee of free speech and claim to abide by its democratic heritage, but the menu offered to it's electorate is more often than not a case of the same pudding served with different sauce.

If Blair's aspirations were met, there would be even less difference between our two countries.

If America's debts were called in, Bush would either have to "nuke" the bank or accept that China is already the world's strongest economy. Their size makes them the planet's worst polluter, but they are also leading the field toward sustainable energy. They are ahead of America in the old space race, but their agenda is more concerned with off-planet resources and farming than America's showmanship. In percentile terms, China's citizens are emerging from poverty at an accelerating rate and the contentment factor is high. Elsewhere in the world, the opposite is becoming the norm as the social-economic divide widens. France today is a good example.

I would hardly claim that China's leaders are benevolent in our understanding of the word and they certainly exhibit ruthless methods of quashing any dissent in their midst. Yet they have proved more than capable of attaining a dominent position in the global economy in a very short period of time and as a world power they are currently in the ascendency. Even more significantly, they are largely unaffected by the new religious and cultural fundamentalism presently disrupting the rest of the planet.

Enough of the devil's advocate, but it all gives pause for thought.

Later.