06 October 2010

Tony Blair and the narrative of terror

I'm not Tony Blair's biggest fan, not by a long way, but he's not always wrong. Even when he's right, however, he invariably manages to draw the wrong conclusions.

His latest speech, delivered to a Washington foreign affairs think-tank that had just given him a prize as a "scholar-statesman" (like Gladstone, presumably, or the emperor Marcus Aurelius), concerned his favourite subject of what to do about the Terrorist Menace and the extreme Islamist politic-religious world-view which inspires many (but not all) of the terrorists. In some ways it was an impressive oration. He made some good points. Unfortunately, his fixation on "faith" as the answer to everything let him down yet again. [Heresy Corner] Read more