Friends Like Those

Forces of conservatism in Europe are out to sabotage the paradigm shift which would result from going the third way by following the flux of the kaleidoscope into the hand of history. In Oldspeak, there are certain people who do not want the former Downing Street doggie as President of Europe. Even the German chancellor, who for reasons best known to herself has "great personal sympathy for Tony", does not think much of the prospect. "He made a lot of fine speeches about Europe but, essentially, stood on the sidelines when it came to concrete steps forward," according to unofficial spokesbeings; and there is also "his commitment to the Iraq war, Britain's high rates of Euroscepticism, the government's half-hearted ambivalence towards the EU and Gordon Brown's battles over the past six months to exclude the UK from several key elements of the Lisbon treaty by 'defending Britain's red lines' against the rest of Europe". As one Hans-Gert Pöttering observed with typical Teutonic pedantry, "it would certainly help a country to get the job if it decided to opt in"; but of course opting in has never really been Tony's way unless Maggie did it first or there's a chance to play soldiers. Still, he does have some support among leaders "in eastern Europe", where god-bothering right-wingers are more in fashion; and from such progressive paragons of responsible statesmanship as Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolas "Racaille" Sarkozy.