Not so much a king as a Monarch

Simon Jenkins, ex-editor of The Times, is infuriating. He is at times brilliant, at others just inane and whinging. In recent weeks he's been in the latter mode, complaining about a war both just and necessary. This week he returns to greatness. This article is wonderful stuff, pinning down exactly the dichotomy between the twin stars of New Labour. He begins:

When Mr Blair visited the star-studded Clintons in Washington in 1998, he took with him a retinue larger than any Prime Minister before him. Some 30 aides, almost all political, went to the glittering banquet. Margaret Thatcher never travelled with more than ten. The Blairs did not bother to visit their embassy. A diplomat of my acquaintance remarked: “My God, what have we unleashed!”

We had unleashed a Cavalier, the first to rule Britain in a generation. Every age refights the Civil War in its own way and ours is no exception. Roundhead and Cavalier, Whig and Tory, Gladstone and Disraeli, Labour and Conservative, each conflict is an echo of the original. Each participant is pricked by history. Few are so well-cast as the current contenders, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

True, true, every word of it. It is easy, moreover, to turn this model to American politics. Clinton the Cavalier? Undoubtedly. Bush is more a Fairfax than a Cromwell, but Roundhead he assuredly is. Bravo, Mr. Jenkins! Keep writing along these lines.