Has the Blair era been a soft-dictatorship?

This is what Britain has got into and from which it cannot get out. The debts, the moral blackmailing by employers, the obscure party financing, the run for capital to save banks from collapse and the monolith of unions-press-educational institutions. It is a jewel that Blair wanted in the British Empire. British education as evidence of his reformist thinking, to be pursued at any cost, and he was quite clear: "Ask me my three main priorities for government and I tell you education, education, and education.". This was the rallying cry of Tony Blair in bringing New Labour to power with his promises to transform public services.

But after a few years the reform implementations clearly indicated what was really happening: working classes had to embrace precarious jobs, debts and in general more risk, for the comfort and life predictability of a new elite class. His reforms were more difficult then predicted to implement.

The reformer changed his speech in declaration of all-out war on anybody who may have opposed the reforms. "Reformers versus wreckers” he declared in his rage for the blood of such opponents: “That is the battle for this parliament and it is one that we must win" Blair warned, sending a clear message. It was a New Labour of war, suicides, purges, debts, bullying news spin. In reality, it was an all-out war on trust, solidarity, transparency, and independent information. And it could not have been different, because to make his reforms he was aware of what he had to destroy first. So new Labour had to keep a distance from Europe, had to refuse to join the Euro and had to bury the conflict of interests, in order to bring such reforms alive.

Berlusconi was a real need for Blair in all this. He could really embody all that Blair wanted: double-facing, corruption and laws to avoid the illegality of his mis-doings. A man able to say and deny at the same time, a narcissus with big ideas about the Italian economy. In reality they used to echo each other on TV and in the papers. Blair went for the big ally then. He went for the man who may have given him possibilities that only ‘men of affairs’ can give: to enter into the business of a country through its major representative. As such, Blair, in real terms, attempted to export the third way to Italy, but paid a heavy price: he didn't account for the extra-parliamentary activism that Italy cultivates, in order to keep at bay corporativism and imperialism. He came to be confronted, along with Berlusconi - who in the meantime was pumping silicone into his face to make the miracle of science, the loss of age, come true - by the masses of workers.

Then the accounts had to be presented in matters of workers rights and job stability. Italy has been a test bench for Blair and his reforms and he has learned the experimental lesson along with his friend, the man of plastic: workers are of left and of right and there is no press that can convince them that 'anything goes'.

The unions in Italy have emerged from all these grand operations stronger then before. A progressive concern for manifesting class interests, conscious that there exist classes, there exist colours used by banks like blacks and reds to highlight balances, there exist words like credit and debt. They have different meanings and workers felt and feel them on their own skin and were and are ready to make this well known to Blair and his plastic friend.

Britain is a different country. Possibly it could have been the country in which Mr. Plastic would have found his liberty and full realization as a politician. He would have been comfortable with many journalists, union leaders, VCs and pro-VCs, and company presidents, but I don't know if he would have been comfortable with the justice. I can be sure that he would certainly be at home with some press, but more precisely, with that sort of press that cannot detect the border of decency; where a journalist is no different from a servant-journalist. But Mr. Plastic is only the little king of Italy. Not that sort of king that only Britain deserves.

Mr. Plastic would be more at home in Britain because he could truly realize his dream of no unions; only professional associations and universities which profess the good of the economy and of the free-market. He would be comfy within that elite caste, with those who listen, applaud, and execute. That elite caste that never questions or critiques and actually tailors laws to perfectly suit the needs of government, irrespective of the needs and opinions of the people they supposedly govern and of the voters in first place.

Mr. Plastic would be smiling on the streets emptied of university workers’ protests and would visit, from time to time, this or that TV programme to talk of his achievements. There he would be interviewed by journalists who would then invite union leaders to comment on the speech.

After this, invariably newspaper articles would be published in which the following unchangeable sentence would be found: “Sally Hunt said”. Mr Plastic would be free in the country where journalists define rank-and-file as Stray Cats and he would finally be at peace with the pseudo-Union of his dreams. He would be happy and in harmonious conjunction with what University and College Union leaders would say. He may even propose to join them in an honorary chairmanship.

Mr. Plastic would be at home within corporations of university VCs and Pro-VCs. He would not need to pass any specific legislation to get them on his side or to exercise control: he would govern, and they would execute. No matter the outcomes. Media would be under the control of a powerful and rich elite caste and always ready to make anything unnoticeable. The only thing to note would be legs and breasts if not genitalia on the cover of their newspapers: masculinity in any sense.

Mr Plastic would definitely favour diplomas issued by retailers, if this would help keep unemployment down and a stream of teenagers ready to be underpaid and indoctrinated by the temples of capitalism. He would also continue with his face-liftings and accurate make-ups like Blair and Brown at each loss of confidence in the British public. Or, like the elite caste of university union leaders at each re-branding of unions. Even higher education magazines and newspapers would lift their look and remix their editorial boards from time to time, to cover the wrinkles and the signs of age.

Many scars would be left on the British education system and on the lives of workers by the cold surgical removal of academics and others who evidence the disfigurement of such a system.

Such scars would be corrected with highly specialised plastic surgery journalism.

Elite castes are like-minded: The objectives are to make the rich always richer and the poor always poorer and ever-increasing in number.

With Mr Plastic in Britain, it would all be like it was for Tony: Education, Education, Education.

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