Why Blair secretly wants his partner in war to lose

[cal04]

Last Thursday, Stan Greenberg, the Democrat pollster who is advising John Kerry, flew in to London for a private meeting with Labour's most senior strategists. If anybody is looking for proof that Tony Blair's closeness to George W Bush has done nothing to damage his party's links with its historic centre-Left allies, this is it. Philip Gould has also been in Washington to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the Kerry camp.

The American pollster had an interesting message for the Labour team. It was, he said, impossible to predict the result of the American presidential contest - although he was quietly optimistic of a Democrat win. What was clear, however, he claimed, was that the Republicans' attempt to frighten the electorate into re-electing Mr Bush had failed.

The Republican strategy has been to scare people into George W's arms - but Mr Greenberg argued that, whatever the eventual result, it had not been as successful as the Bush team had hoped, because the public saw it as a cynical attempt to exploit their sense of insecurity.

Of course, a Kerry win would leave the Prime Minister looking isolated over Iraq. It would be embarrassing to share a platform with a president who had called the military action against Saddam Hussein "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time". But Mr Blair knows that voters in this country are as united in their dislike of Dubya as people in America are divided about their view of Mr Bush. A Democrat win would, as one of the Prime Minister's advisers put it, "drain the poison" from Mr Blair's relationship with the Labour Party and the country

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/11/01/do0101.xml

[Demeter]

1. I Have Never Been Able To Figure Out Tony Blair.

I think he just wants to be liked by American Presidents.

I don't think he desires to be beloved by his own fellow Brits, either. He seems to be totally alienated from his party's historical positions and means of success.

[cassiepriam]

4. blair

Yes, he was one I could not understand. But I recently read
somewhere (cannot remember the link) that he was threatened soon after bushco took office with all sorts of dire economic weapons if he did not come on board. That is consistent with bushco operations.

[Demeter]

2. My computer or yahoo is spastic/ disregard

[Demeter]

3. dupe