Bye Bye Blair, Hello Sarkozy

So it's official. Tony Blair is standing down as PM come end June. Who would have thought, 10 years ago, what would eventually become of the then fresh-faced Prime Minister. Iraq changed everything. That and the numerous scandals that faced his government. Arguably, Blair's greatest achievement was shifting the Labour party to the centre and thus making it electable - which of course, happened before he took office. This isn't to say that he accomplished nothing of historical note during his decade in power - strong, consistent economic growth, Britian taking the lead in the fight on poverty and enviromentalism, the advancemet of gay rights including the introduction of civil ceremonies - but I doubt history will judge him to have had as much of an impact as Thacther did while in power, or indeed to have lived up to the expectations the nation placed on him back in 1997 - which he admitted, during his announcement that he was stepping down, were probably too high.

Nevertheless, Blair has become such a fixture in the international scene over the past 10 years that it is going to be strange to think of anyone else as the PM of Britian, all the more so for people of my generation. When we started paying scant attention to politics (well I'm speaking for myself anyway) back in, say, 1998, he was already in power. We've don't remember what it was like when Major or Thacther was PM. The end of an era indeed. And ultimately, Britain is much better off than it was back in '97.

Meanwhile, across the Channel, Chirac is on his final legs (and my god it's taken a long, long time) and Sarkozy has been elected to succeed him as President of France, with a sizable victory over Segolene Royal (here in Singapore 54% may seem a miniscule margin of victory, but that's because ours is a pseudo-democracy isn't it). What does this mean? Hopefully, a much needed "fracture" with the past. The first step would be to abolish the 35 hour week (I find it hard to believe that any company could stick strictly to that and remain competitive with other countries where a 70 hour week is common, although I would FAR prefer to work 35 hours of course). Lower taxes. Wean the French off their comforts and expectations of excessive welfare.

What does this mean for the trans-Atlantic relationships? Surely Gordon Brown is very aware of how the very close personal relationship between his predecessor and George Bush ultimately ended up damaging the former, and with an eye on general elections in '09, would need to distinguish himself in this respect without doing harm to Britian's special relationship with America. Meanwhile, Sarkozy would seek to repair relations with America that were damaged following the Iraq invasion, to the point where Francophobia is still so evident, especially in the right wing, without appearing to his own people as pandering to Uncle Sam.

Ah politics. What a balancing act. What a pity that local politics is so bland in comparison. It's not that I dislike local politics just because it's local (similarly, I don't dislike Singapore Idol just because it's, well, from Singapore). But the absence of any room for true debate or opposition, and the sheer predictability of it all, just serves to make most Singaporeans either apathetic to politics in general, or look to other countries to provide entertainment and amusement.

On another note, new BRITNEY at the end of September! EEEEE! CAN'T WAIT!