Why Blair’s response is worse than inadequate

Anthony Daniels (aka Theodore Dalrymple) in NRO:

When Mr. Blair reveals that preachers of hatred and would-be destroyers of Britain—at least, those who do not hold British citizenship—will no longer be tolerated, he is admitting that the country of which he has been prime minister for the past eight years has tolerated, and indeed welcomed, such people. What is the extremist to conclude? Not that the country and its culture are tolerant to a fault, but that they have a death wish and that it would take little to finish them off altogether—with just a few bombs in the subway perhaps.

… Mr. Blair, with his mania for change and modernization, his aversion to anything smacking of tradition, and his hatred of what he calls “the forces of conservatism” (as if nothing of value existed in his country before his providential arrival in power), has also contrived to give the impression that the country and its culture lack all confidence in themselves as the bearers of anything of worth, and are therefore vulnerable to coercion and intimidation. … But the danger, as always with Mr. Blair, is that he will increase his government’s powers without increasing its effectiveness.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 15, 2005 07:59 AM | Send