Who said: “I love it when a plan comes together”?
Comment at end
Hannibal: B.A., there’s an old saying - “The best defense is a good offense.”
B.A. Baracus: You got that wrong, man. A good offense is the best defense.
Hannibal: Okay, have it your way.
11th December, 2007
HANNIBAL & ‘THE B-TEAM’
Hannibal Smith, of the 1980s television series, “The A-Team” used to grinningly declare through his teeth and cigar:
“I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER!”
You can play this while you read the rest of this post. Unless, of course you’d prefer to watch the video instead - it’s up to you! I won’t take it personally.
So what’s this got to do with the price of organic turkeys or plums, even?
Well, it seems that discreet as he is on the present prime minister’s state of affairs, Tony Blair HAS referred socially and none too subtly, to Brown’s team as the “The B-Team”.
That invites comparison with Blair’s team. And Mr Blair says nothing nor does nothing for nothing. You can be sure he meant that comparison to be drawn, if only amongst friends.
And he isn’t the first one to have pointed it up recently.
ALL BALLS
It’s all Balls, Straw men and other anonymous people in Her Majesty’s government today, is it not? Even I, a political junkie, find it a push to get past half a dozen of them. No wonder their vision is hard to see; we can hardly spot THEM let alone their raison d’etre.
OK, so there’s Jackie Smith the Home Secretary, and David Miliband the Foreign Secretary, and Darling, of the Alistair variety. Oh, and talking of dear Darling …
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
I don’t expect that William Shakespeare, when he wrote these words in “Romeo and Juliet” in 1597, knew that the British Labour party, almost 400 years later would adopt a red rose as its emblem. (The rose from 1986; prior to which, from party founding in 1900 - to 1986, it used the red flag.)
Juliet:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
But Blair could be forgiven for being tempted to mix it a little more,
“I love it when a red rose by any other name comes together and smells so sweet , Darling.”
Perhaps Brown’s people are just unfortunate in their names. But Brown, lends itself neatly to Brown Stuff, in which they are all swimming at the moment; Balls is full of it; the Straw man blows in the wind from being Blair’s right-hand man to being on Brown’s right! And Darling … well, he possesses the same surname that Ben Elton and Richard Curtis could not better for their twitching character in Blackadder. Co-incidentally, the Blackadder character is played by the self same actor who plays the accident-prone Mr Bean in another fictional life.
And Vince Cable, the Acting Lib Dem Leader memorably scored a hit in parliament recently when he referred to Mr Brown as going “from Stalin to Mr Bean in a matter of weeks”. Life imitating art?
So, to go back to the plan coming together - I am not insinuating that the desperate straits in which the present prime minister finds himself is part of a Blair plan. True, Mr Blair did not WANT to leave when Brown and cohorts cursed him literally out of Downing Street. The abuse got personal as well as possibly, threatening, by some accounts. And all from these ‘great’ men who now … er … presently run our country.
But Tony Blair planned nothing to do them down in response.
In fact in September 2006, when the plotters circulated the letter telling Blair to go, he said, “If they want me to go, that’s it” (Blair Unbound, Seldon, page 487). Others urged him to “Do nothing, fight on.”
No, Brown’s present mess, and relegation to the B Team, is all his own doing.
But we were warned that Brown was difficult to work with. And his little lads had become so deeply steeped in the cabal of conspiratorial concoctions that they have found great difficulty in moving onto a higher political plane.
Apart from that, they’ve no real idea what they have to offer that’s going to excite the average you and me. Blair’s done most of it. See ‘Entrenched Blairism’ here.
BACKGROUND TO BLACKADDER’S DARLING
Captain Kevin Darling was a fictional character played by Tim McInnerny in the British sitcom Blackadder Goes Forth.
The character was originally named ‘Captain Cartwright’, as writers Ben Elton and Richard Curtis were unable to think of a more amusing name for him. Eventually however, Stephen Fry suggested ‘Darling’ would be a more comedic alternative. It was at this point that Captain Darling developed his trademark eye-twitch.
Darling, whose surname is a constant embarrassment to him, is a Captain in the British Army in World War I. He is a pencil-pushing staff officer (hence the red tabs on his collar and the red band around his cap, both of which were later only worn by officers of the rank of Colonel or above) and aide to General Melchett. Darling’s main duties at GHQ include unloading and assigning truck loads of paper clips [...] Darling is portrayed as an intellectual rival to the character of Blackadder (most of the other characters are usually comic foils), and one who usually triumphs over him. However, Blackadder often gets some sort of revenge..
In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.
Watch David Cameron’s jibe to Brown on his “B-Team” at PMQs
Tags: conspiracy, ed balls, Gordon Brown, plan comes together, the A team, the B team, Tony Blair
