Pensioning Dictators

There is nothing quite like a spring day in Toronto. Unfortunately, these come by too infrequently and when they do, are fleeting, the city plunging rapidly into sweaty, drenchy summer. We have just now entered into one such phase.

            But even though the hazy, lazy days are upon us, Toronto is a lot more relaxed than it was this time last year. The change has come about because Canadian voters, in the federal election of last fall, decided to toss out the incumbent Conservatives and replace them with the Liberal Party. The Stephen Harper-led conservatives had pursued such un-Canadian agenda that it was little surprise that Canadians put the kybosh on them.           

The new government is living up to its party’s name by acting out an agenda that is reaffirming Canada’s reputation as a caring place after the nearly decade-long regressive social and fiscal tory policies. Predictably, the new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is proving to be every inch his father’s son, boldly taking on the forces of conservatism that would hold the country back. That he is an amateur boxer in no way diminishes his intellectual agility but might have added a bit of spice to his hands-on approach to government. Perhaps a bit too much, judging by recent events in the House of Parliament when, in trying to rescue one opposition party member embedded in a scrum during an intense debate over physician-assisted dying, his elbow reportedly made contact with the bosom of another opposition party member.  

Meanwhile, Stephen Harper decided to throw in the towel as party leader and seek his fortune in other spheres. This, we are told would not be a bad move, as he is likely to be much sought-after among the denizens of the corporate world for all that knowledge and cachet garnered during more than two decades of high-flying politics and, as prime minister of Canada, while hobnobbing among the  world’s movers and shakers. His earning potential is enormous. Maybe not approaching the astronomical levels of Tony Blair’sTonyBlair or Bill Clinton’s BillClinton subsequent to their own tenures on high, but certainly greater than that of most African presidents and prime ministers, whose only hope of a half-decent pension lies in remaining in office until they drop.

Is it time to consider a pension plan for African dictators? 

Tell Fren Tru

What To Do About Phobias?

In Britain, they say that when the Labour Party is involved in scandal it is usually because of money, whilst, in the case of the Tory party, sex is more commonly the trigger. I certainly don’t know why these relationships should be so. It may be that the Tories, in the main, have money at their disposal, whilst access to licit sex may not be that readily available. In the Labour Party, the reverse situations may apply. Who knows?

However, for the purpose of this blog, we will ignore the Labour Party’s occasional fall from grace and focus, instead, on the Tories, since they are the current party of government. My take however, is that it may be unfair to see their party as a one-dimensional sex machine. On closer inspection, privilege and the sense of entitlement that goes with it, is the Tories’ greatest handicap. That sense of entitlement drives policy and locates Tories at a place from which they can’t seem to understand or relate to the common experience. Moreover, entitlement breeds that sense of exceptionalism, which sets Tories further apart from the rest of humanity. From exceptionalism, it is an easy segue to xenophobia.  It is this xenophobia - fear of the other - that made the party notoriously resistant to the idea of a European Union until, ultimately, the realities of a post-colonial decline forced them to send in their application to what was then the Common Market. The French, Britain’s nearest neighbour, know all about British (Tory) exceptionalism and, at first, and then again and again, rejected their overtures.  I sense that the Tories have not forgiven the French for this presumptuous act of hubris.  

Four decades after entry, and still smarting from that series of rejection, it has required just the jeers and taunts of a party on the extreme right to frighten the Tories into calling a referendum to decide whether to remain or leave the EU. Exiting would be a largely self-destructive impulse, and most sensible opinion has said so, ranging from the UK’s own central bank to international organizations and world leaders. It is uncomfortable enough to see the right-wing Ukip tail wagging the Tory dog, but many influential Tory party members are now out there, chanting the Ukip mantra and ready to savage anyone daring to advocate remaining.

Into this toxic, already vituperative brew, steps Barak Obama on his valedictory world tour including a stop to wish Queen Elizabeth II a happy 90^th and to get acquainted with the infant George VII. But, flashing his usual broad smile, he also felt obliged to suggest, as many others have done, that Brexit is a bad idea and that if that came to pass, Britain would have to take its place at the back of the “queue” for negotiating a trade deal with America... Ignoring the linguistic gulf between the two nations that Obama’s use of a five-letter word instead of a four-letter one exposed, the subsequent fracas would have been difficult to understand, if not for the fact that the chief Tory Brexit spokesman, Boris Johnson, in a choice few phrases, succeeded in not only demonstrating the most extreme version of Tory xenophobia, but also the party’s lingering regret over the unravelling of their erstwhile colonial enterprise.

Fair enough, you would say. But the reason I am writing this blog is that I perceive Boris Johnson’s attempt to defame the President of the United States, as just another facet in the Tory racist agenda, most manifest when the Party faces problems at the ballot box, as is the case in the Brexit referendum and in next month’s vote to choose a successor to Johnson as Mayor of London. 

Tell Fren Tru