OK.
Here's a men from the boys post.
A wheat from the chaff post, shall we say.
You either get the point I'm making here, the whole principle of EVERYTHING I'm on about or...
You'll never get this blog.
In the spring of 1999, Ron Davies, Secretary of State for Wales, nominee to lead Labour's team in the first elections to the Welsh Assembly, went for a drive on Clapham Common.
Everybody is agreed on this.
Also on Clapham Common were- well, Crack dealers. Now let me just say, that the colour of the crack dealer that now appears in the story is relevant- to Ron- but not relevant to the fact he was selling Crack.
Because Ron wasn't looking for Crack. He WAS looking for black men.
Ron a-rolls down his window...
No, he doesn't want a baggie for a tenner. He wants to suck a black man's penis for a hundred.
'Not me gov!' says the Crack dealer 'But I can sort you out.'
And this is where things started to go wrong for Ron.
Ron returns with his new friend to an apartment in a tower block. Another well endowed black man appears.
The next bit is kind of surmise, because it seemed for ever and a day before the public heard the true story, but it seems that as Ron was just starting to get his lips round the black manhood in question, the click of a camera was heard...
Never assume the fact that a man is black, or the fact he sells Crack on Clapham Common, means he doesn't watch Newsnight...
'Hello Ron! Ron Davies, isn't it? Secretary of State for Wales? Let's go for a walk.'
They took Ron to the cash till. They cleaned him out.
They drove off with his car.
Left him standing in the street.
And rung Downing Street 'We've got this red box. What do you want us to do with it?'
That was the end of the career of Ron Davies.
OK. Not a very creditable story. And putting the red box in danger, certainly a breach of national security.
But they got the red box back. No damage was done.
Tony Blair stood up in the legislature, in front of the elected representatives of the British people and LIED to them about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
He lied to Parliament, to make them approve a war.
A war founded on the ludicrous suggestion that Saddam Hussein had an alliance with Osama Bin Laden.
And how many people have died because of that lie?
What damage to the relations between the world's peoples has that lie done?
So- what sort of people do we want holding responsible positions- Human beings who make personal mistakes, but do their jobs- or people who seem flawless, but really, it's the flawlessness of the Adept Deceiver?
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10 comments:
Many people have died because of the lie. Politics, games, power...
I think that people would be more concerned with the Iraq affair than a guy who wanted to be with a black man. I do not know the story but from what I am reading, Ron was someone in the public eye. So he was gay? had gay tendencies , wanted to be with a black man and went to a seedy area to do so, really his life choices didn't affect as many people as Tony Blair's.
You can't control the minions if those in power engage in socially deviant behavior, Crushed.
On a smaller (slightly off topic) scale, I also wrote a post about a member of parliament who was charged with sniffing the seat of a female colleague. Just because they wear a suit and tie and can rattle off 'big words' does not make their sexual fantasies and behaviour any more or less deviant than the next person.
I also think that power is a huge turn-on and maybe a lot of these men (and women) in power engage in behaviours they might not have otherwise had they not been in a position of wealth or superiority.
Anyway...I do see the point you were making (I THINK, haha). Ron's actions were selfish (putting government equipment at risk) and he made a very foolish mistake that night based purely on sexual urges. Tony Blair had weeks and weeks of deliberations - months even. So did our Prime Minister John Howard who fully supported George Bush in Iraq. We've still got our guys over there.
They made a choice based on what I believe, was a few different factors - the spread of militant Islam, the climate of fear in the Western world against Arab foes and yes, OIL. No body really believes Iraq was invaded out of the goodness and protective instincts of George Bush. But you know, I still think that our (ex) Prime Minister and probably Tony Blair made a decision based on pressure from the USA and the decision definitely wasn't knee-jerk. It's all been a total disaster, every body agrees but I don't think Blair or Howard should be painted as murderers. Bush on the other hand.....
I think my last sentence was a bit dumb and full of rhetoric..... just ignore that last bit :)
I don’t know much about Mr Davis. But who he wants to have sex with, or how is not a qualification, or a disqualification, for the job he was doing. Any more than it is for the man who runs formula one racing.
What may be a was that he was not more open about it, then society and the papers do not let people be.
But that was what led to his betraying a trust when they threatened to reveal what he had done. That was the real problem.
Way better if he had said “Give me my money back you crooks”. Like so many other politicians, for whatever reason, he put himself ahead of the people he was supposed to be serving.
On the war thing. If it was lies then very bad, and they do say that thing about watching to see if their lips move ;-)
But life can be complicated and people do talk themselves into believing all sorts of such unlikely things on such thin evidence. So maybe Cabinets do too?
"Tony Blair stood up in the legislature, in front of the elected representatives of the British people and LIED to them about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
He lied to Parliament, to make them approve a war.
A war founded on the ludicrous suggestion that Saddam Hussein had an alliance with Osama Bin Laden."
Links please, don't just make shit up CBI :) intelligence in US, Britain, Germany, France, Israel, et al thought that Iraq had WMD's; leaders of countries tend to (usually) listen to their intelligence agencies and trust their judgment (whether they should or not is another story altogether) and they make decisions based on this.
CherryPie- But the real point of the lie is to create the idea of a terror network- thus justifying further measure to put more power in the hands of the authorities to quell dissent.
Create fear- Islamophobia- it serves much the same purpose as Anti-semitism did to Hitler.
Nunyaa- My point, in principle. I mean, I look back on this incident differently to how I thought about then- I was about twenty and the whole story was just funny- or it is at that age, because you still have rather silly views about sex, especially gay sex, and the image of a cabinet minister with a black penis in his mouth just seems laughable.
But maybe that's the point. Why should it? The fact is, if no one really cared about such a thing, Ron could have shrugged his shoulders, got in his car, and drove off.
Helen- But how deviant is it really? It's not illegal. It's consensual.
Of course, your point is correct- it disturbs the image they want to portray- we're too human to govern ourselves, they of course, our are masters, squeeky clean, like Teflon.
Kate- I think you pretty much summarise what I'm trying to say, yes.
Ron Davies stands out as one of the few resignations of the Blair regime- that wasn't rehabilitated somehow. And most of the others, the ones rehabilitated in a short space of time, actually did things that WERE an abuse of office, or else gross incompetance.
I often ask myself, would I have ben sacked for what Davies did? No, is theanswer. But for what almost every other minister tries to avoid resigning for? Yes.
Thing is WE employ these idiots. But we don't seem to have much power to excerise our employers rights...
Electing the legislature every five years isn't quite the same as democratic control, I don't think. As Voltaire said, 'The English are only free during elections'.
Moggs- I agree, and it ties in with other comments. Fear of being judged by the public for something really, totally irrelevant to how he did his job.
There's thin evidence and there's anorexic evidence. And dossiers written by A-level students as research essays do NOT constitute valid evidence of WMD.
But it suited Blair. Iraq would be his Falklands. That's what he thought.
Lord N- Saddam Hussein was a secular leader who hated fanatical Muslims- persecuted them, even. The idea that he had anything in common with Bin Laden makes no sense.
And while we're at it, how on earth could we have the nerve to approve the execution of Saddam Hussein for crimes committed inh the Iran-Iraq war- with weapons the US and the UK supplied him with IN A WAR THEY WANTED HIM TO WIN.
And the fact is, there were no weapons of WMD, the UN said there was no grounds to invade. It was an illegal war. About as legal as the Italians invading Abyssinia in 1936.
Did no end of damage to international relations and to me, is pretty much one of the synptoms of the impending collapse of the current order.
"illegal war" heh opinions shouldn't be mistaken for FACTS there CBI
"how on earth could we have the nerve to approve the execution of Saddam Hussein for crimes committed"
you do realize he was convicted by an Iraqi Judge/jury and executed by Iraqis right? I can approve of him being executed all I want to; no matter who supplied him with anything, he still committed the crimes he was convicted of.
Again, you didn't touch my point; you said LIE, as in everyone (Blair) LIED to get into the war; back it up
Talking of flaws, how long do you think old Gordon Brown's got left?
What really annoys me about him is his FAILURE ever to admit to ever having made a mistake... and his assumption that to be PM must somehow mean to be flawless. If only he could admit to being a fallible human being he might get the human vote...
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