Circling Sharks

"Just when we thought it was safe to go back in the water, the sharks are circling again," said a British Cabinet Minister, resignedly surveying further debate on Europe.

This was just one of a number of rather ominous political soundbites of the last few years (which have added "axis of evil" "old Europe", and "shock and awe" to our vocabulary). The British Prime Minister, asserting his determination not to falter, was characterized as "reckless" by one of his Labour colleagues. A senior Conservative, contemplating electoral disaster, thought that "The fundamental question is is the Conservative Party leadable?" Even reassuring statements ("We have not found any smoking guns" - Hans Blix) were likely to be countered ("The problem with guns that are hidden is that you can't see their smoke" - Ari Fleischer).

The immediate past has also been the graveyard of individual political hopes. In March 2001 the former US Vice-President introduced himself to a student audience with the words, "I am Al Gore, and I used to be the next president of the United States." William Hague, in his last Parliamentary appearance as Leader of the Conservative Party at Prime Minister's Question Time, said of Tony Blair, "Debating with him at the Dispatch Box has been exciting, fascinating, fun, an enormous challenge and, from my point of view, wholly unproductive." His successor Iain Duncan-Smith warned "Do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man," but he too found that the sharks were circling.

Perhaps there are times when the only possible response is complete denial, as with the Iraqi Minister of Information's final press briefing in Baghdad in April 2003, "I now inform you that you are too far from reality."

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