Dear Mr. Blair, You Let Down “Cool Britannia”

Socio-political Rants

Dear Mr. Blair,

It seems you were exonerated from any wrong doing by the independent commission over the suicide of Iraq weapons expert David Kelly, and that your government didn’t lie about the Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the head of BBC has resigned for saying so. At the same time the US is now admitting there were flaws in their intelligence over this issue. And three times more people in Britain believes the BBC over the independent commission, which is saying something about how you’ve presented yourself, your government etc. etc.

I am not British coz even after ruling this city for so long, your country could’t even be bothered to give us passports coz you didn’t want an influx of immigrants of Chinese decent. Not only that, you’re sorta still ruled by a monarchy, so I don’t pay much attention to what’s going on that part of the world.

However, I do want to say, that when I was in college and you got voted in, all these English exchange student had a party for your coming to power. They were so happy because after three decades of conservative rule your country was finally taken over by the liberal party. Those kids were hopeful, extremely excited. About as excited when Clinton came to power. Probably about as excited as we would be if we got to vote in our own government. After graduation, I went traveling and again met a lot of young Brits who pinned their hope of the future on you.

Sadly, you haven’t lived up to the dreams of those people at all, and by siding with the Bush administration over the war, against UN, against most of the people in your country, you’ve let everyone down. That’s really sad to go about face to all the people who put you in power because they believed in your party would not go the way of the other. You were the man who coined “Cool Britannia” as a symbol of the Young Britain, then went ahead and ignored their voices.

It’s no wonder people don’t trust you.

Published by Yan Sham-Shackleton

Yan Sham-Shackleton is a Hong Kong writer who lives in Los Angeles. This is her old blog Glutter written mostly in Hong Kong from 2003 to 2007. Although it was a personal blog, Yan focused a lot on free speech issues and democratic movement in Hong Kong. She moved to the US in 2007.

3 thoughts on “Dear Mr. Blair, You Let Down “Cool Britannia”

  1. In Wales where I come from we were so Happy to have a labour government after years of the conservatives raping and destroying our economy. I don’t think anybody not even his own Labour party realised exactly what Mr Blair was really about when he was voted in to power. The labour party was founded as a socialist movement (they created Britains “welfare state”). Now people cant really notice any major difference between the parties. It doesnt matter who you vote for in the UK anymore they are all the same.
    Oh and the heads of “Independent commisions” in the UK usually recieved their power from a particular party so their independence is never believed by us Brits

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