There is a John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Elsewhere in the United States, there is a Carter Center containing the wisdom of James E. Carter and a William J. Clinton Foundation. Americans seem very willing to set up foundations and libraries to honour former presidents, no matter how degenerate their morals.
So perhaps it is fitting that Angus McBlair's supporters (and there are still a few around, apparently) are looking for decent donations to the Angus McBlair School of Government, which will be located at some suitable educational institution in London.
The London School of Economics has been the target of overtures since April of this year, and the McBlairites feel that the project is sufficiently far advanced to seek some cash from past beneficiaries of Mr. McBlair's munificence (at the expense of the public purse).
Hoping that the passage of time has smoothed out some of the bumps in his reputation, the McBlairites are in the process of 'cementing his political legacy'. The aims of the AMSoG would be to create ideas (like the Millennium Dome, and celebrating the millennium change a year early), to create policies (such as giving the job of administering the Dome to cronies and usual suspects), and to influence future governments.
The AMSoG's secondary function would be to generate income to repair the McBlairs' shattered finances, which foundered on a series of ill-advised property speculations. For this reason, Angus McBlair would not be on the books as the head of his institution, rather he would be free to earn money as a guest speaker at functions.
Unfortunately, the project is attracting a degree of derision from usual suspects and it might just drown in a flood of frivolous suggestions. Like putting Campbell McAllister in charge of creative writing, Pierson McAndelsen in charge of ethics, giving Lord Hawksbane responsibility for developing the business plan and . . . well, you get the point.
filed by Smight Aufrank [s.aufrank@md.news.uk] |