1 comments about Man Behind the Smile: Tony Blair and the Politics of Perversion.

1. These are the author's own phrases characterising Blair's premiership, so first a word about who he is. Leo Abse, now in his late 80's, is a retired Labour member of parliament from the mining community of South Wales. He is the author of a similar study of Margaret Thatcher, but what I had mainly remembered about him was the story of a meeting he addressed in his own locality at which the chairman referred to him as `Mr Abs'. His surname has two syllables, so he murmured in the man's ear `Call me Abs-ey', to which the chairman replied `That's very nice of you, call me Jonesy'.

   He has a fine sense of humour himself, and some of the cattier sideswipes at various figures in this book are very entertaining. This is a study from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, and it takes in not just The People's Tony himself but his wife, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, the fearsome former Downing Street media supremo Alistair Campbell, Blair's political Svengali Peter Mandelson and certain others. The book originally appeared in 1996 before Blair came to power under the title Tony Blair: the Man Behind the Smile, with updated editions in 2001 and 2003. The problem for me with a psychoanalytic account is that I do not have enough knowledge of the technique to form an independent judgment of my own. Abse's approach is distinctly partisan and hostile, as his phrases that I have used in my caption to this review make very clear. It is all easy enough to understand, it is coherent, systematic and seemingly well-researched (sources are listed at the back) but there is no question that this is a full-scale frontal attack on Blair as a politician. An analysis using this technique belittles its subject, as this book is manifestly intended to do, and ordinary detachment and fairness suggests that there must be at least some temptation, for someone fluent in the terminology, to use it to promote a point of view rather than carry out a genuinely objective enquiry.

   Abse is `old Labour' as he says himself, and he draws his inspiration from the post-war Labour government whose socialising approach he believed Blair could have emulated. Among more recent Labour figures he singles out the late leader John Smith. I had the honour of knowing John personally long before Abse did, and all I can say is that if he really was the conflict-unaverse full-blooded socialist that Abse depicts he must have changed a good deal since I used to know him. Whether Abse is precisely `left-wing' is questionable, and he is manifestly unimpressed by certain recidivist trade union leaders of the kind who made the trade union movement as deeply disliked as it became in the 1960's and 1970's. He is basically a fair-minded and decent-minded socialist who believes that Blair and his motley outfit of modernisers have, in his own words, stolen the soul of his party. He recognises explicitly that the kind of social legislation he aspires to is not going to be achieved without conflict. However as he sees fit to characterise Gordon Brown as being willing to face up to anyone except himself (Brown, that is), I suppose I can legitimately question whether Abse in his turn is really facing up to the sort of obstacles his own preferred policies confront in this day and age. This is a book review, not any kind of political statement of my own. What I would have wanted from Abse is his own honest answer to the question `Given that Britain is a member of the European Union, and given even more the extent to which governments are in the hands of international capital, do you think you will achieve anything except disaster by taking on hopeless odds?' If the political will is there, anything might indeed be possible. Can he honestly claim to detect it at this stage of the world's history?

   There are real touches of brilliance in this book and it is in the main well-written, so much so that I shall ask - can there really be such a word as `aggressivity'? There wouldn't be if I had anything to do with it. There is categorically no such word as `wreaked', the word is `wrought'; it is a solecism to use `proportions' to mean dimensions; and does he mean `atactic' or `ataxic'? I enjoyed the book thoroughly. The sincere sense of disappointment that comes through it is shared from various political standpoints, not least from the prevalent view that we have no visible alternative government.

No comments about Winston S. Churchill.

No comments about Winston Churchill: Un luchador incansable/ A Tireless Fighter.

No comments about Churchill (British History in Perspective).

5 comments about Churchill: Wanted Dead or Alive.

1. The author, Celia Sandys, is the subject's granddaughter. As such, she had access to papers, people, and places that few individuals have. She presents a view of the early Churchill (age 20-25) that gives one an objective glimpse of his early life, ambitions, and personality. She has done much field research by access to original papers, actual locations, and descendants of those who knew Churchill in his early 20s. Much of her research is centered in South Africa where the young Churchill had a yen for being where the action was in the Boer War, and having an inordinate amount of luck escaping death and danger. Additionally, she gives detailed maps of his movements, and tries to bridle some of his self-sustaining writings that could not be independently verified. This work should give any reader an understanding that Churchill's early years were a prelude to his more famous leadership role during the dark days of World War II. An excellent read.



2. This is the first book that I have ever read about Churchill, so I was very surprised to read example after example of his arrogance and his "at all times" sense of entitlement. His granddaughter (an obviously biased author) recited many of Churchill's actions during the Boer War as examples of his bravery and courage. I, however, interpreted these actions in quite a different manner. One example of Churchill's "bravery" was when his train was ambushed by Boer troops. The author described his behavior as brave and heroic, whereas I viewed his actions as a very calculated tactic for self-advacement. In fact, it was Churchill's fault that the train went so far into Boer territory in the first place--he wanted more information for his newspaper, and his subsequent actions only put the British troops in more danger. The book was also not well written or organized; it reminded me of reading a high school book report.



3. This time last year, appropriately enough, I was reading this book of Churchill's epic escape from the States Model School in Pretoria, an event that had happened 100 years earlier to the very day.The 12 December 1999 was also a day in which I lost a friend in a road accident, thus, the centennial anniversary date becomes etched with the personal. Churchill was clearly a larger-than-life figure all of his life as his grandaughter and author Celia Sandys clearly shows in this historical work in which she followed in his footsteps, visiting campsites, battlefields etc and speaking to descendants of friends and foes alike. Contrary to the assertions of some other reviewers it is a well written and enjoyable book. Some of the interesting vignettes include the detective work the author did on tracking down the gold watches that Churchill had sent to various people for their assistance in his escape from the Boers (or Afrikaners as they are known today). At the time of publication Mrs Sandys had located 6 of the 8 watches. Mrs Sandys is not afraid to challenge Churchill's assertions that he was captured by Gen. Louis Botha himself (later the Union's first Prime Minister, 1910-19)and she rightly dismisses talk that there was ever a romantic entanglement with Helen Botha , the General's daughter. The author is partly correct when she records that Churchill's "huge political ambitions demanded a wife who would be a political asset..." However, that would cut both ways, something Helen Botha alluded to 60 years later when she said it was unlikely that she could fall for him as she was "a Transvaaler." Her father and Churchill may have "got along famously" but it is the author who is disingenous, not Helen Botha, in considering that a personal political rapport could see the leader of the Afrikaner volk, or a member of his family, contemplate such a marriage -particularly after the deaths of some 26,000 Boer women and children in the world's first concentration camps - British concentration camps. Nevertheless, this is a good read about a remarkable soldier-stateman in his younger days. Enjoy.



4. This book presents several interesting vignettes relating to Churchill's life and activities during the South African "Boer" war, but overall I was disappointed, and finished wanting more. Overall, I thought this was rather superficial, and I didn't feel as tho I had gained any substantial insight into the life of one of the giants of the late 19th/early 20th century.



5. I am a great admirer of Sir Winston Spencer Churchill, and so being I read nearly every book that is published. As I write this Mr. Churchill was on the cover of one of our National Magazines last week, and the title was "The Last Hero". A man who is completing another biography of Mr. Churchill's life wrote the story inside.

   A book by his Granddaughter Celia Sandys could be easily dismissed as a biased treatment, a work lacking objectivity. I believe The Authoress did a remarkable job of adding to the Historical Record without being a revisionist in her Grandfather's favor or to his detriment.

   I have read Churchill's own accounts of the adventures contained in this book, and many other books written about this amazing story and I still would recommend it be added to any existing collection of Churchill books.

   Mrs. Sandys manages to bring to light new bits of information that at times reinforce the contemporary accounts, and at other moments confirm what might have been an Historical Embellishment passed down through the years. She portrays her Grandfather with candor, and shares the information she collected while reconstructing herself the trip that her Grandfather made so many years ago.

   Sir Winston Spencer Churchill M.P. has already taken his place in History. He was a man who seemed to know what destiny held for him, and also what History would say. He once said, "I know how History will remember me, as I shall write it." He once described the human race in the following terms, "We are all worms, but I believe I am a glow worm."

   A well written, balanced account of a small part of a life that was full of momentous moments. Mr. Churchill is unique as he is not just part of our History, he is History. That he is still quoted almost daily, new books continue to be written, and a College is to be built confirm this is true.

   When confronted with "if you were my Husband I would put poison in your soup", the retort, "if you were my wife I would eat it." Oh to be at that dinner.

   Thank you Mrs. Sandys.

No comments about The Paladin: A Life of Major General Sir John Gellibrand (Australian Army History).

No comments about Winston Churchill.

1 comments about Diplomacy and Disillusion At the Court of Margaret Thatcher: An Insider's View.

1. It is hard to remember how bad things seemed for the West in the 1970s. Western economies reeled from the Oil Shocks and stagflation. The communist world grew to include South Vietnam, Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia. The Soviet Union began a campaign to intimidate Western Europeans through the installation of SS20 nuclear missiles capable of vaporizing every NATO base in Europe in a matter of minutes. In 1979, one might have been forgiven for being pessimistic about the West's prospects. Nonetheless, that was the year Margaret Thatcher came to power, just in time to catch the coming neoliberal wave which would bring free market reform from Chile to China and destroy the Soviet Empire.
   
   There is much more to Thatcher than that, however, as this book (Diplomacy and Disillusion at the Court of Margaret Thatcher) by the Hungarian-born specialist on Eastern Europe George R. Urban. An occasional informal adviser to Thatcher (the subtitle "An Insider's Account" is somewhat an overstatement), Urban gives us his account of the Iron Lady. Initially he is enamored with her. Literally. Seduced, as many men strangely were, he found her "an attractive lady" who though in her fifties had "retained the movements, the legs and walk of a young woman." He wrote some of her "Churchillian rhetoric" calling for the rollback of the state at home and the defeat of communism abroad. Upon meeting her for the first time, he was delighted that "this highly intelligent, well-informed and resolute lady would make mincemeat of the American leadership." He adds "what a pleasure to see a person of ideas in charge of declining Britain!"
   
   The book is a selection of Urban's diary entries introduced with short passages that explain the time and context. The story is that his gradual disenchantment with Thatcher as someone systematically opposed to both `Europe' and Germany. He records her saying as early as 1984 (!) that "there is no question that if the Germans were reunited they would, once again, dominate the whole of Europe." Needless to say, this would pose some problems later.
   
   In particular, Urban wants to set the record straight on the "Chequers Seminar" in March 1990 in which Thatcher invited a number of historians and experts to give her advice on Germany. It eventually was leaked in the press that the seminar's participants, and Thatcher herself, had an extremely anti-German tone. Urban, with most other participants, pleaded that they had not been anti-German or conspiratorial, but that that had been the Prime Minister's attitude. As her guests asked her to accept unification she would answer with statements like "Yes, yes, but you can't trust them." or "Ah well, but not when you are talking to Germans. They will always be the same." In fact, she had reached her conclusion some days before, echoing Mitterrand's 1913, she told him "we may be going back to the state of affairs preceding the First World War."
   
   The debate central to Urban's book is a little surreal from today's vantage point. But a contemporary reader unfamiliar with both British domestic politics and end of Cold War foreign policy will, however, find many other things of interest. Telling things on the era. I don't think Urban had 9/11 in mind when he wrote to Thatcher, downplaying Europe's potential problems with German and Russia, that "it is possible that the real problems of the future - and of course there will be some - will be quite new: for example Muslim fundamentalism in France and Britain supported by Libya or Iran." Who cannot see some vindication for Vladimir Putin when Urban told Thatcher, "half in jest" that in Yeltsin's Russia "what the `dark masses' need is the periodic application of the whip, as so many Russians have been telling us. The present chaos, too, is waiting to be sorted out by a strong man of one kind or another. [...] Even today, many Russians will volunteer the opinion that only a Tsar-like figure can keep them in order."
   
   Urban is writing before Tony Blair coined the term `Cool Britannia'. His Britain, only 10 or 20 years ago, is a weird place. The infamous and legendary anti-immigration populist Enoch Powell writes that the idea of the Soviet Union being bent on world domination is a self-serving American lie that has "no basis in fact". As though it were the 1950s, Urban notes that "it is English chic to show Spartan exterior if not downright poverty." Whole pages of the book are made up of Urban or Thatcher's lamentations of the state of English: Why did all Britain's goods come from Germany or Japan? Why were the only stores open till late at night owned by Pakistanis? Why were the English so sloppy, lazy, easy-going and humble? It was quite embarrassing for a statesman's nation to be thus: "Thatcher is in many respects too good for Britain... She is cut out to be the leader of a nation with the thrift and work ethic of Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Taiwan, perhaps even the US, where her vision, resolve and free-market enthusiasm would produce lasting results."
   
   This tension, not like unlike that between De Gaulle and France, between Thatcher the English patriot and her distinctively un-English qualities (Urban notes a few: "moderation, give-and-take, respect for minority views, the distrust of grand schemes and theories...") is only one of the paradoxes of her character. She is far more complicated than what many people who praise her legacy today seem to think. Thatcher, who according to Mitterrand "becomes like an 8-year old girl when she is with Reagan," was outraged when the US invaded Grenada, on the grounds that it violated "Commonwealth sovereignty". Thatcher, the Cold Warrior, like George Bush went to Kiev to oppose Ukraine's independence (No "vive le Quebec libre" here...), supporting the collapse of communism and the integrity of the USSR. Thatcher, the nationalist, justifies this with a critique of Wilson of which given the troubles we have had, even today in the former Yugoslavia and Iraq, I can only approve: "It is Woodrow Wilson, of course, who is ultimately responsible for the damaging myth of the single-nation state. Such states cannot work. Wilson got it all wrong. He is the one to be put in the dock of history." Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, Thatcher, for 15 years leader of the Tories, eventually came to dislike the term "conservative": "we are a party of innovation, of imagination, of liberty, of striking out in new directions, of renewed national pride and a novel sense of leadership. That's not `conservative', is it?!"
   
   The paradoxes and complexities escape her image in the United States. Urban describes a lavish party hosted by the Heritage Foundation with her as guest of honor: "It was a black-tie occasion. Everybody who is anybody in Washington and beyond was there - some fourteen hundred of them... The queen couldn't have done better, what with the country-club conservatives, corporate America and the military all gathered under one roof... America was conferring on MT the sort of honorary imperial presidency she had vainly sought at home... But here in Washington, seat of the only remaining superpower, with the symbols, and the reality, of the might of America so theatrically displayed, she could, for a brief hour or two, savor the rewards of history she felt were her due. She was praised by her hosts to the point of embarrassment. When the black ties stood up to toast her, it was like a regimental gathering drinking to the monarch."
   
   This kind of honor is not something that Thatcher could receive in Britain without some heckling: hated by a large part for the mass unemployment her policies caused, thrown overboard by her own Conservative Party for the poll tax's unpopularity, disliked by the foreign policy establishment for her opposition to both German unification and European integration... In Britain, the aggressively neoliberal/libertarian/neoconservative (whatever you want to call it) streak is quite alien to the nation's character. She has only found an enduring appeal to the Euroskeptics still fighting against `Brussels'.
   
   It is strange that of all foreign leaders, only British ones like Churchill and Thatcher ever have conservative cults dedicated to them in the US. Her hallowed place in the Pantheon of American conservatism, like Churchill's, is a skewed one: she has been reduced merely to the proponent of limited government and the flamboyant Cold Warrior. She has been stripped of all the idiosyncrasies, contradictions and petty parochialisms that make up every political life and every human being. One wonders if she can truly take comfort as she basks in the glory of being etched into the memory of the Americans, for what they see in her is not her, but a vain reflection of themselves.

1 comments about Gladstone (British History in Perspective).

1. This is the political life story of the Grand Old Man of British politics (GOM). William E. Gladstone certainly did influence British politics for over fifty years, and was elected to the Prime Minister position four times. This short book (or thesis) explained his political development through those fifty years. He moved from a Conservative on social issues to that of a Liberal or even Radical position. His championship of Irish Home Rule kept Ireland within the British Empire for thirty more years. This man and his political position kept the radical left from many popular positions.
   The unfortunate part of this book is that it reads like a thesis. It probably was a thesis and as such will not attract much interest from the general public. I did learn a great deal about this most influencial of British politicians.

No comments about Winston S. Churchill: The Second World War.