Given the vast amounts of money that the UK (and other countries) make from the Middle East in terms of arms being sold and in terms of countries being controlled to fatten our already superior lifestyles in Europe, perhaps we all need a huge rethink.  It is not a question of blaming a government, as an individual in the street, it is a case of facing facts.  We have rich lifestyles because we control the subjugation of the Middle East so that we can have our oil;  and the leaders over there have to keep their people dumb.  But people in the East are evolving intellectually and they have ascended the base-norms that they have to be under autocratic rule.  The generation now prevailing is indeed too young to accept being subjugated as a norm.  May God bless them all;  they have more guts than we Europeans who smugly “believe” that we have the “best” of governments.  We do not.  We are barely represented because the politicians of our day are self-seeking, self-aggrandising, self-propelling, career politicians.  The system allows only this breed in.  I do know because I have been a member of the Labour Party briefly, but the system didn’t want me because I didn’t fit in with “new” labour.  Not fiddling expenses, not creating a personal career and not necessarily following the party line are not qualities that are valued.

I went into the Labour party just afore John Smith died.  There was a man of integrity.  Then came the most blatant puppet of the new career politicians whose only pursuit through the corridors of power and the troughs of plenty, was their own elevation.  Tony Blair and Cherie, King and Queen of Misrule. Whilst they “stood” for Labour values it was only the facade they used to self-propel.

Where do we get this notion that they embodied the principles of the Labour movement?  This was, and is, pure facade.  Irrespective of their IQs and cleverness, their only desire was to enrich themselves through the machine of the new government and “new” Labour.  Indeed it was “new” as it was just the old coat over what was really a complete new creation (marketing psychology used widely) of the new elite – who actually believe that they are worth it.  Genius itself is not even a reason to rely on a politician, as it does not necessarily follow that he or she will work for the greater good.

So Tony Blair gave us huge smiles, good-lad antics and war.  Cherie gave us a good try at appearing to be sophisticated because she is a barrister and “has done it all” in terms of working and career life and having all those kiddies to boot, rising to the top of the realm, because she assuredly deserved it. Perfect Mum, wife, career woman and coming from ordinary origins as if that, in itself, is supposedly the role model that should be aspired to by us all.  The only messages being conveyed to folk that through hard work and the requisite cleverness you may “escape” your humble origins – the assumption that escape is the be all and end all has been so long prevailing that it is our given in the UK these days, as is – or was – the given that the peoples of the Middle East should be under police state control.  The women MPs, from Blair’s Babes era, gave us no reason to respect them, even the clever Harriet Harman (a supposed espouser of a more fair society) choosing to follow her Tony in the placement of her son in a better school – directly against Labour policy.  The arguments were futile and this level of public servants merely find that their children deserve the very best whilst they work hard to try to get that for everyone else.  Hmmm.  Leadership by example then?

And, with all of this going on, war was the hugest “present” given to us by our “noble” leader of the nation and his party.  What else could we reasonably expect from a leader of a party which had sold out its values along with creating a dreadful environment for people like Mow Mowlem, whose respect from the public was earned, so that she was sidelined;  not because she was a bad politician but because she commanded more respect within the party and certainly outside of it, than her own leader.  So, she had to go.

War and its precedents, experience and aftermath is given to us not by a mature and evolving government – even if our Parliament is the Mother of all parliaments it doesn’t mean to say that it is the best by default – but by self-seeking, self-serving leaders and machinations of the system which attracts and supports that type of person.

This is as much a spiritual issue as it is a political issue.  And it is high time that we all took responsibility for at least acknowledging the truth about war and foreign policy, even if we do not seek to change things.  Just to face the truth is a starting point.