That's what you leave behind as a legacy when you suffer from low conceptual complexity but are charming with it.

This ties in with a lot of hints that Blair is really just another off-the-peg authoritarian. Possibly what happened in the early years was that he was nestled within the bosom of Labour and his colleagues were allowed to pursue traditional Labour policy - at least up to a point.

Gradually those with irritating old-fashioned ethical beliefs were forced out, for one reason or another.

Then came Iraq, most of the remaining traditionalists resigned. Blair remained as the sole driver, with no moderating influences, surrounded by a collection of yes-people and authoritarian religious types who share his real views.

It's been a very quiet coup. Labour grassroots have deserted, literally in their millions, and what's left of the old party now is just a twitching corpse stifling an urge to turn up in public in a bishop's hat, and fingering a rosary.

Thanks for the link and the diary which I missed the first time around.

Not only was it very enlightening, it also answered a question of mine. Quite some time ago I picked up a translation (and a good one, with lots of explanatory footnotes) of the Koran, and read quite a bit (a quarter perhaps). Anyway in some parapragh were it is stated that you should respect other people of the book, Jews, Christians and Sabeans were listed as those people. Finally I have the answer to that nagging question "who were the Sabeans?".

And so I find that they question was posed in the wrong tense, but tragically looks like it will be in the right tense soon.

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