Blair's refusal to fade away brings out savage hatred in Britons
When The Guardian recently ran an article headlined "Tony Blair recalls 'dire' stand-up attempts and his role as 'Captain Kink'", the opprobrium was predictably spectacular in its savagery.
On writing this, 408 comments accompany the article and there appears to be one that is partially Blair positive. Is there a more hated Brit?
“Why don’t we just shoot the vile bastard and have done with it?”
“Could we parachute him into Isis-controlled territory for a week of stand-up?”
“They say Hitler was an artist before his war mongering too.”
“Just die, disappear, go to jail, anything but talk like anyone has any respect for you.” And so it goes. And so it goes.
The Guardian would ordinarily remove many of these types of comments, especially those advocating violent retribution. But for Blair it is open season.
He cuddled George W Bush in a saccharine display of mutual admiration, sent British troops to Iraq and earns a post-political living, in part, by counselling oil-rich dictators, to name a few perceived transgressions of the man who supposedly betrayed the UK Labour Party, the millions who voted for him, Britain, humanity and the unborn child of an unemployed council worker in Scunthorpe.
How could the victor of three straight elections, the sanguine face of a Labour Party renaissance and a Northern Ireland peacemaker become so despised?
It’s largely because Britons want him to fade away like a bad memory, yet he won’t shut up.
For many people the toothy Blair picture used with The Guardian article irritates like a finger in the face.
“The only news we wish to hear from this murderous, lying psychopath is that he has been found guilty of war crimes and has been put away for the rest of his cursed life.”
“He’s not a human being, don’t treat him like one.”
So loathed he has been downgraded to non-human; a species separate from the one he once enchanted with quixotic rhetoric.
It’s a digital mob with an ancient fervour. While Blair enjoys private air travel and the ministrations of lickspittles, he is symbolically paraded before the baying Internet masses and pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables.
While Dom Perignon tickles his nostrils and he leans back in the chair, slaps his thigh and laughs loud at his bejewelled host’s attempt at humour, he is hung, drawn and quartered as the netizens jeer.
He soaks in a Middle East palace’s gilded bath, and is beaten to death on the Web’s dark and filthy cobbled streets.
“I could happily kick Blair until my feet bled.”
It’s ugly and unrelenting. But in the spirit of free speech, it is also beautiful.
RELATED