You tell ‘em, Jack.
George Bush, 21st September, 2001: ‘Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists’
Jack Straw, March 15th, 2004: ‘the truth about these fanatics is that unless you are 100% with the terrorists, you are seen to be 100% against them.’
It’s interesting that Spain has swung socialist. I would have expected the country to go more right-wing, as happens in Israel after terrorist bombings, or the USA after Sept 11. People generally seem to tend towards the right when they are scared and angry. Is this breaking a trend do you think?
I dunno. It’s certainly getting increasingly difficult to deny that the war on Iraq has increased the risk of terrorism, but maybethis result was more of a punishment for the pro-war Aznar government rather than a resounding vote for the ‘left’.
Apparently, the new Spanish government is social democratic, rather than socialist, which in theory is the same as New Labour.
On that subject, Zapatero says New Labour is “quite a forward-looking, modernist” socialist party: talk about damning with faint praise! In Europe, Labour tend to oppose social democratic legislation (such as the new Working Time Directive) and then when it gets passed, proclaim it in Britain as a great victory for the Labour government and social democracy, despite the fact that they fought tooth and nail to prevent it coming in!
I think it depends what people are angry at (the people who did it, the people who let it happen, or the people who caused it). Are there other examples of bombings before elections causing a unexpected result?