An ideal government

"Whataboutery" is not about facing up to inconvenient truths but is attempting to diminish the significance of one truth by introducing others as if one awful deed is somehow lessened because someone else did a nasty thing!

Maizie What you call 'whataboutery' I call being honest.

If you want to deal with dishonesty and ignoring inconvenient facts, you may do so.

Zoejory

No such thing as an *ideal government*

Which is why it’s up to the electorate to hold them to account.

No such thing as an ideal government

May be do not equate my huge disappointment in Blair with any kind of support for the current PM?

M0nica

Maybe70
^ So, apart from Iraq, what exactly did Blair do that was so awful?^

Well Iraq was so terrible, is still terrible, the deaths that go on, the suffering. It led to ISIS and the terrible things they did including the virtual destruction of the Yazidhi community. Isn't that enough to totally damn the reputation of the Prime Minister who did it forever? In fact it is so bad it could be shared out across many Prime Ministers and it would be sufficient to damn them all.

Iraq was terrible; it was certainly not as black and white as some pretend. As time goes by, I believe there will be a more nuanced reassessment.

Please don't think I am trying to persuade you to agree with my opinion; I am not. However, I doubt I am the only person holding it.

Still on the whataboutery, MOnica.

Oh, before you misimterprete my above remark. the fact that there were two or many complicit parties to a wrong does absolutely nothing to justify or mitigate that evil or the responsibility of each party involved.

But all those involved in an evil should take on their responsibility and, if anything the admittance by all those involved in the slave trade, on all sides about how they co-operated in it, only makes the evil appear more heinous.

Can you name any empire in any time in history that was not accompanied by terrible actions? Look at China and the Uighurs and Russia and Ukraine.

Maizie I would expect no other reply from you. Most people prefer to ignore uncomfortable facts.

M0nica

None of those compare with the full horror that was, and still is, Iraq.

I'm sure that the victims, and the descendants of the victims, of British brutality and genocide over the centuries would be delighted to know that their pain and suffering was nothing compared to Iraq.

And your subsequent whataboutery about the British involvement in slavery disgusts me.

PECS

m0nica that is whataboutery & does not detract from the fact that European traders used human beings as a commodity. Their actions sparked a chain reaction in local West African areas that may not have otherwise occurred. Not admirable at all & not condoned but it does not in any way minimise the colonials' appalling actions.

There were slavery issues in West Africa prior to European intervention. Slaves were traded across Africa by African and Arab nations. The one difference was that these slaves had some chance of becoming free citizens in their new environment. Europeans just had more goods to trade, copper being just one of those very important minerals.

Europeans took the slave trade one step further with transportation to a new continent, enslavement for life and abdominal treatment, all justified by the Bible. Additionally it made fortunes and even helped to provide the immense wealth that fuelled the industrial revolution. Britain, France, Spain and Portugal were all heavily involved with the Netherlands having a smaller stake. The USA continued with slavery after it’s independence.

BTW, I know this is off the original post so apologies.

PECS

Re Blair, his dreadful decision to go to war on Iraq blotted out any other promising policies his government may have promoted or introduced.

Still he's OK, living the life of Riley as opposed to many Iraqis.

He helped bring peace to Yugoslavia and Ireland. Saddam Hussein was slaughtering his own people. He was a despot who needed taking out. I would imagine not a day goes by when Blair doesn’t regret the war but it wasn’t just this country and parliament did vote for it. Maybe he wanted young people to go to university to better themselves? Not to fiddle the unemployment figures. The ones that Johnson stands up in parliament every week and lies about.

Re Blair, his dreadful decision to go to war on Iraq blotted out any other promising policies his government may have promoted or introduced.

Still he's OK, living the life of Riley as opposed to many Iraqis.

m0nica that is whataboutery & does not detract from the fact that European traders used human beings as a commodity. Their actions sparked a chain reaction in local West African areas that may not have otherwise occurred. Not admirable at all & not condoned but it does not in any way minimise the colonials' appalling actions.

I might add, while not defending slavery in anyway, that the current fashion is to act as if the British and only the British were involved in slavery, but Portugal, Spain and USA were also enthusiastic participators, who continued after we left off.

Not to mention the chiefs and kings whose tradition of enthusiastic slaving led to the start of the trade. I have just been reading a book about the British anti-slavery naval squadron, sent out when we abolished slavery, and who, for one hundred years patrolled the African coast, where the slaves came from and whose job was to try and capture slaving ships and free the slaves.

I was shocked to the core to find out how enthusiastically the local kings and chiefs, without any intimidation, were willing to round up people, or instigate wars on all kinds of pretexts, to gather slaves to sell to the slave traders, even though they knew what happened to these captives. and how these same African kings and chiefs actively colluded with the Portuguese and other slaving nations to keep the trade going after we banned it and sent a squadron to try and stop it.

This is the side of slaving, that is convenient and comfortable to forget.

None of those compare with the full horror that was, and still is, Iraq.

M0nica

Maybe70
^ So, apart from Iraq, what exactly did Blair do that was so awful?^

Well Iraq was so terrible, is still terrible, the deaths that go on, the suffering. It led to ISIS and the terrible things they did including the virtual destruction of the Yazidhi community. Isn't that enough to totally damn the reputation of the Prime Minister who did it forever? In fact it is so bad it could be shared out across many Prime Ministers and it would be sufficient to damn them all.

You could utterly condemn a good many of our past PMs in the last 300 years for atrocities committed by the British in other countries, MOnica. You must be very uncomfortable to be British when you look at our history. Slavery, famines in India and Ireland, opium wars, concentration camps in South Africa, treatment of the Mau Mau in Kenya, looting other countries and repressing their native populations; our crimes against humanity are many.

Why do we have to single Blair out for special opprobrium?

Maybe70
^ So, apart from Iraq, what exactly did Blair do that was so awful?^

Well Iraq was so terrible, is still terrible, the deaths that go on, the suffering. It led to ISIS and the terrible things they did including the virtual destruction of the Yazidhi community. Isn't that enough to totally damn the reputation of the Prime Minister who did it forever? In fact it is so bad it could be shared out across many Prime Ministers and it would be sufficient to damn them all.

Seriously? Apart from Iraq? ?‍♀️

I’ll pause awhile... he managed to persuade 50% of school leavers to go to university (with all the debt that entailed) so that his unemployment figures looked good, some of them haven’t had decent jobs since!

Most could have served an apprenticeship with proper skills, going on to run their own business as plumbers, electricians etc without his efforts to downgrade their livelihoods!

The biggest joke is that his son has made millions setting up all of the above...

I keep wondering about that too MayBee.

Pantglas2

Well she didn’t lie and never went to Eton paddyann and maybe her morals weren’t yours....2 out of 3 aint so bad really! You could have had Blair - oh wait...!

So, apart from Iraq, what exactly did Blair do that was so awful?

Well she didn’t lie and never went to Eton paddyann and maybe her morals weren’t yours....2 out of 3 aint so bad really! You could have had Blair - oh wait...!

Thatcher had morals? Who knew ? Didn't she say there IS no society while destroying lives and communities ,politicising the police and testing her vile policies on ..well us .If thats your version of morals I feel sorry for you

Thank you, Maizie, I think I’ve got it... and if I haven’t, I’ll be back?

One that isn't Tory.