The sleazy old Tory affairs of British New Labour

This British music video is called ‘Yo Blair (electric)’.

Here are the lyrics:

YO BLAIR

You said “Trust me, I’m a straight kind of guy”.
“We’ve got to be whiter than white” that was your election cry
Best not mention Ecclestone, Cash for Peerages and the Iraq lie

Knowing the 45 minute threat was false
Still going along with your master’s course
Millions of people protesting “NOT IN MY NAME” until they’re hoarse
They’re hoarse………. “NOT IN MY NAME”…………they’re hoarse

YOU WILL HAVE YOUR PLACE IN HISTORY — THAT’S GUARANTEED
BUT IT WON’T BE WANT YOU THINK IT WILL BE
THE ONLY THING THAT YOU’VE ACHIEVED
IS TO BREED RELIGIOUS HATRED AND CORPORATE GREED

The only march you want to see is the march off to war
Obsessed with your place in history trying to justify what it was all for
You’ve been making our country America’s whore

The Intelligence Services warned you that they had their doubts
But the invasion still went ahead you don’t care what international law you flout
Now your integrity is so out of reach………….out of reach
Your INTEGRITY………….out of reach.

YOU WILL HAVE YOUR PLACE IN HISTORY — THAT’S GUARANTEED
BUT IT WON’T BE WANT YOU THINK IT WILL BE
THE ONLY THING THAT YOU’VE ACHIEVED
IS TO BREED RELIGIOUS HATRED AND CORPORATE GREED

Lying to a nation with your self-serving glorification
Desperately trying to find some kind of justification
Moving the goal posts left right and centre, trying to validate your reasons to enter
There’s only one solution to your lies and deceit
Your lies………….DECEPTION…….. your lies and deceit………IMPEACH

YOU WILL HAVE YOUR PLACE IN HISTORY — THAT’S GUARANTEED
BUT IT WON’T BE WANT YOU THINK IT WILL BE
THE ONLY THING THAT YOU’VE ACHIEVED
IS TO BREED RELIGIOUS HATRED AND CORPORATE GREED

Why call for a ceasefire when a few weeks wait will do?
Whilst accusing Iran of wanting nuclear weapons too.
In the meantime we can help Israel with supplying bombs
That will rain down on the CHILDREN of Lebanon.
Will rain down………….on the CHILDREN……….will rain down.

YOU WILL HAVE YOUR PLACE IN HISTORY — THAT’S GUARANTEED
BUT IT WON’T BE WANT YOU THINK IT WILL BE
THE ONLY THING THAT YOU’VE ACHIEVED
IS TO BREED RELIGIOUS HATRED AND CORPORATE GREED

Words and music by AStoney01 © 2006

From the Morning Star daily in Britain:

Sleaze and hypocrisy

(Friday 26 October 2007)

WHEN Labour won a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, there was not only elation for working people who hoped for and, to some extent, expected a measure of social justice from the new government.

There was also a much wider sense of relief that an administration that oozed every aspect of corruption was being put out of its misery.

While Labour carried the day, taking an impressive number of seats, the public mood was best expressed by former BBC journalist Martin Bell, the man in the white suit, trouncing the execrable MP for hire Neil Hamilton.

Hope was on the breeze that the idea that anything goes in the quest for personal enrichment, which epitomised the Thatcher-Major Tory governments, was on its way out.

Honesty, truth and decency were the watchwords of the new administration, even as it warned working people that their economic concerns would not be government priorities.

And the early signs were worrying, with Formula 1 racing boss Bernie Ecclestone offering Labour £1 million and, as if by magic, the government dropping its commitment to ban lucrative tobacco advertising on F1 cars.

Former unlamented premier Tony Blair tried to brazen the situation out, claiming that he remained a “pretty straight kind of a guy,” but matters have gone downhill.

Prior to the 1997 election, Blair acolyte Stephen Byers charged that the Tory Party had received £18.8 million in secret donations and he listed 82 instances of major donors “coincidentally” receiving knighthoods.

He was right, but new Labour has behaved worse by not only copying the practice but trying to cover up.

The Blair government passed legislation to bring major donations into the light and then advised its own rich supporters to designate such gifts as loans that were not open to scrutiny.

And there was the same coincidental award of gongs to party donors as had occurred under the Tories. Sleaze compounded by hypocrisy.

Nor is it simply a matter of rich individuals buying influence and titles by bunging cash to political parties.

At one time, it was rare for Labour MPs to emulate the practice favoured by Tory and Liberal backbenchers, particularly former ministers, of vacuuming up directorships that were left lying around by big business, especially companies seeking state contracts.

Now, you could hardly put a fag paper between the parties, with only a few principled politicians refusing to see their election as an MP as a licence to feather their own nest.

The excuses that they put forward for taking directorships or being on the payroll of PR companies are risible.

They claim to be gaining greater experience of the world of business, developing their knowledge of new industries and becoming better equipped to represent their constituents, but they know the truth.

They are treating the well-paid job of MP as a part-time post, offering themselves to the highest bidder and putting personal wealth before public service.

New Labour’s betrayal of working people’s interests indicates that political and personal corruption are mutually sustaining and that cleaning up political life depends on fighting for socialist policies and rejecting the poisonous grip of big business.

Tony Blair failed to stand up to George Bush over the invasion of Iraq, the former US secretary of state Colin Powell has claimed: here.

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