Enter the Canon of Cant ... back at top twang
ALL the old tricks and kinks were there, gamier than ever: the deer-leap eyebrows, the affirmative shakes of a forehead corrugated by thespy disbelief. And the ‘franklys’. ‘Frankly’ always did mean he was about to say something snide.
Tony Blair, Canon of Cant, Bishop of Blether, was back, with wife Cherie in support.
He came blowing into the General Election campaign with a pro-Miliband speech which may only have reminded swing voters it’s the Tories who are offering the popular option of a vote on Europe.
Mrs Thatcher’s comeback speeches invariably stuffed her own party. Will Blair’s do the same for gunky Ed?
Be grateful, Britain: Saint Tony was back in our midst and he had a message for us from the upper slopes of Mount Bilderberg.
It was ‘frankly’ irresponsible for ‘mean-spirited’ Right-wingers to propose a Europe referendum.
The mere notion of a ballot giving the little people their say was a ‘completely unacceptable gamble with our nation’s future’.
He spoke slowly, milking the moment – the gravity of the senior statesman, see? His speech included a lecture about global power blocs and our piddling place in the global firmament.
If we’re that unimportant, how come those foreign dictators pay him millions of dollars for his after-dinner speeches?
Renegotiating our EU membership would be ‘ a horrible process – don’t be in any doubt about that’. A referendum would increase ‘ the perilous fragility of public support for the sensible choice’.
So said the man who so sensibly chose to wage war in Iraq, ignoring the British public in the process. ‘Yeah, well, so here we go,’ he had begun, all aw-shucks, giving a little shrug and grimace. It was as though he wanted the crowd of about 50 at the Xcel Centre in Newton Aycliffe, Co Durham, to believe he was a novice at public speaking. Marilyn Monroe as maid of morals.
Soon the Blairishness of his performance was turbo- charging, tics and quirks becoming overdone. A hint of cross- eyed earnestness here, now a chopping of the air with two palms, next a Charlton Heston gaze into the distance. Every minute he was up there, he became jerkier. Top up that battery with public love juice, baby. Feel the tingle!
THE planning for this event had been furtive, keeping the London press corps out of the loop as long as possible. The audience was therefore almost completely tame.
He was introduced by his successor in Sedgefield, the incorrigibly prosaic Phil Wilson.
Sedgefield Labour Party, after Blair, must have gasped, ‘Give us a dullard!’. In Mr Wilson, they found their man.
Then the maestro of melodrama was centre stage, predicting ‘chaos’ if voters were offered a say. Hyperbole mixed with ham. He congratulated Ed Miliband for refusing to offer a vote on Europe. The audience gave moos of agreement.
This was Blair as a greedy impressionist might have done him. The oratory was undeniably skilful. Not for him the nasal drone of a Miliband speech.
With little flicks of hands and head, rhythmic variation in the delivery, plus unusual phrases (the country was in a ‘ semiconscious torpor’ about this issue) he demanded to be noticed.
He remains a great actor – albeit one of megalomaniacal tendencies.
His right forefinger did not just point at the audience. It did a little lasso rotation and at the same time he moved his whole neck and jawline. The pop group Talking Heads used to do dance moves like that.
‘Excuse me, but get real,’ he said, arguing that the referendum was dangerous. Get real yoursel f , chum. The highhandedness of the EU elite may no longer be an option. Democratic danger could lie in ignoring public feeling, as you ignored it over immigration.
Yes, this was Tony at top twang, demagogic, messianic. But when an ex-parliamentarian argues that an issue is too grown-up to be left to the electorate, it is a sign he has spent too much time in the company of bonkers despots.