Dogberry
11-06-2004, 06:59 AM
Reading between the lines it looks like the UK can look forward to being alienated from Europe and the US.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3987707.stm
What Bush's win means for Blair
By Andrew Marr
BBC News political editor
Mr Bush won his second term this week
As the dust settles, as second reactions form, the American elections look like making life harder for London, not easier.
Party campaigners are already drawing lessons - Bush's success in setting the agenda, the early failures in the Kerry campaign, the lethal effectiveness of the flip-flop attacks made on the Democrat challenger.
But for the rest of us, the more interesting questions are about the extent to which the underlying issues and, of course, the result of the American elections bear on British politics now.
The war on terror and Iraq played well for Bush in a way that Tony Blair cannot quite bank on
Andrew Marr
Listen to Andrew Marr
The war on terror and Iraq played well for Bush in a way that Tony Blair cannot quite bank on. The attack of 9/11 shocked and altered America in a unique way. Here, linking the war on terror with Iraq has been more widely questioned - and often ridiculed.
Nor has the pro-family agenda, pushed by the religious right in the US, have anything like the same resonance and purchase in British politics. In general, we should beware false familiarity.
Many of Blair's Labour colleagues are no fans of President Bush
That British politicians talk easily about Condi, and Rumsfeld, the State Department and the fly-over states, masks how different those politics actually are, a democracy in which moral issues outplayed economic ones.
All that said, Tony Blair, taking comfort from the re-election of another war leader, is already grappling with the fresh problems that brings.
From his first congratulatory phone call to George Bush onwards, through every public and private pronouncement he has made, the prime minister has hammered away at the importance of the Middle East peace process.
Then there is Kyoto, and Africa. Mr Blair hopes George Bush re-elected is George Bush calmed, a second-wind leader readier to heed outside advice.
President Bush: will his second term be more inclusive?
Others, who also know the man well, think it will be the opposite, and that George Bush freed to be more himself will not be entirely comfortable for Mr Blair.
Certainly, as he had been about the only man in the Labour Party with reason to root for the president, his disappointed pro-Kerry colleagues are even grumpier about that relationship.
The same probably goes for old Europe - the great Blair straddle, between Washington and Brussels, will become a more painful act.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3987707.stm
What Bush's win means for Blair
By Andrew Marr
BBC News political editor
Mr Bush won his second term this week
As the dust settles, as second reactions form, the American elections look like making life harder for London, not easier.
Party campaigners are already drawing lessons - Bush's success in setting the agenda, the early failures in the Kerry campaign, the lethal effectiveness of the flip-flop attacks made on the Democrat challenger.
But for the rest of us, the more interesting questions are about the extent to which the underlying issues and, of course, the result of the American elections bear on British politics now.
The war on terror and Iraq played well for Bush in a way that Tony Blair cannot quite bank on
Andrew Marr
Listen to Andrew Marr
The war on terror and Iraq played well for Bush in a way that Tony Blair cannot quite bank on. The attack of 9/11 shocked and altered America in a unique way. Here, linking the war on terror with Iraq has been more widely questioned - and often ridiculed.
Nor has the pro-family agenda, pushed by the religious right in the US, have anything like the same resonance and purchase in British politics. In general, we should beware false familiarity.
Many of Blair's Labour colleagues are no fans of President Bush
That British politicians talk easily about Condi, and Rumsfeld, the State Department and the fly-over states, masks how different those politics actually are, a democracy in which moral issues outplayed economic ones.
All that said, Tony Blair, taking comfort from the re-election of another war leader, is already grappling with the fresh problems that brings.
From his first congratulatory phone call to George Bush onwards, through every public and private pronouncement he has made, the prime minister has hammered away at the importance of the Middle East peace process.
Then there is Kyoto, and Africa. Mr Blair hopes George Bush re-elected is George Bush calmed, a second-wind leader readier to heed outside advice.
President Bush: will his second term be more inclusive?
Others, who also know the man well, think it will be the opposite, and that George Bush freed to be more himself will not be entirely comfortable for Mr Blair.
Certainly, as he had been about the only man in the Labour Party with reason to root for the president, his disappointed pro-Kerry colleagues are even grumpier about that relationship.
The same probably goes for old Europe - the great Blair straddle, between Washington and Brussels, will become a more painful act.