As the era of Anthony Blair's Prime Ministership thankfully draws to it's conclusion, a spot of psychological profiling is in order and, below, we offer a case study indicative of Blair's primary psychological disorder - Psychopathic Personality Disorder (PPDs). For an outline of the paradigm of PPDs, see previous post at: http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2007/01/psychopathic-personality-disorder.html.
Leading psychologists are largely in agreement that the holistic modelling of personality and psychopathology is particularly revealing when one comes to study military, business, financial and political leaders. A statistically significant percentage of such individuals throughout history have exhibited PPDs. So we should not think of Blair as being unusual, he is merely one of the latest in a long line of inappropriate characters. Indeed, Blair's former Chief of Staff described him as "Napoleonic" in a comparison with a historical PPDs figure. PPDs is a combination of two fundamental psychological disorders Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPDs) and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPDs) and, in our case study, we merely list attributes related to the disorder and leave you to make up your own mind on whether the adjoining prompts are indicative proof of the man's condition.
* Most PPDs are male.
* He has little compassion or guilt for the outcomes of his behaviour - Even if Blair truly believed that waging an illegal war in Iraq following twelve years of continual economic and military bombardment was the correct course of action, where is his remorse for the dead Iraqi civilians and British soldiers? Estimates suggest that up to half a million children died as a result of the economic sanctions and the number of innocent deaths now has reached the stage where the Iraqi government have decided no longer to release figures (Britain has already refused to honour it's obligations in this area). Only an individual with PPDs is able to detach themselves from the human impacts of their decision making on this scale.
* He is fearless under threat - The slippery semantics and posturing that form the bedrock of Blair's public face morphs into an altogether more assertive characterisation when the man's back is pressed up against the wall. If it weren't for the consequences of his robust defences of his inappropriate actions, one would have to admit to being impressed by the ferocity, pseudo-logic and strategy in these performances.
* He is aggressive, oppositional and opportunistic - Numerous examples may be put forward including his attritional approach to Prime Minister's Question Time and his monthly press abuse conference. Whatever the full truth of their interactions, Blair has exhibited each of these characteristics in his dealing with Gordon Brown. Additionally, there are high level rumours around that Blair was allegedly approached by the CIA while at Oxford and this opportunism has formed the foundation of his strategy since. True or not, it certainly explains some of his more puzzling global hierarchical positionings eg Bush's poodle syndrome.
* Many psychopaths are shrewd and calculating and struggle to learn the social mechanics of interpersonal communication thus masking their disorder. Some are able to develop a thoroughly charming mask and are not typical of society's view of such a perpetrator - Personally, I never accepted Blair's mask from day one but that isn't the point. Blair has been able to convince enough of the people enough of the time to give credence to his fake and spun public persona. He rarely drops his mask however. The only time in recent years where I remember such an occurrence was when some inbred Tory suggested in parliament that we were becoming "a police state". Blair's apoplectic response was most revealing. A future angle that should be attempted in the destabilisation of PPDs Blair would be to ask him for proof that he was ever a member of Hackney and Shoreditch Labour Party (as he claims) - we have seen evidence that this is one of Blair's little porkies...
* The combination of ego and cunning is always present - Blair's nickname at school was Carmen and his narcissism is an everpresent feature of his public appearances. His staged cringeworthy "trust me" performances are a subtle mixture of ego and cunning.
* PPDs seek to control others while doing everything possible to avoid being controlled themselves - think cabinet ministers selection, attitude to the arms and oil industries, United Nations, Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Gordon Brown, lecturing the late pope on the validity of an illegal war, avoidance of proper argument, erosion of human rights, limitation of public and parliamentary scrutiny, replacing the House of Lords with people who support him or his party (sometimes even financially, allegedly). Our invalid trust in him is his justification for approaching international treaties, regulations, formats and processes with utter scorn.
* Their goal in life is to achieve power and prosperity by monopolistic abuse - He repeatedly places himself above global norms of behaviour which is as near to monopolistic political power attainable in an alleged democratic country and system. For a good two years now, Blair's sole focus has been his legacy.
* Their moral perspective can be described as "morality is an illusion/ goodness is weakness/ trust is naive" - This template neatly fits any aspect of Blair's career that one chooses to assess. His tokenistic lip service to issues like Third World poverty and Climate Change while being a driving force in turning a supposedly Socialist party into a neo-conservative one that actively promotes and induces poverty and environmental carnage is a typical duplicity.
Furthermore, PPDs stretches across the upper echelons of the Labour party - virtually none of the power operators believe in anything other than the pursuance of their own power. Prescott, Jowell, Darling, Beckett, Hoon, Straw, Goldsmith, Levy, Brown, Hewitt, Reid etc etc are marked in their shared absence of responsibility for the results of their actions and inactions and, politically, possess no policies to fill their procedural vacuums. There is no belief in an aim or even in a process to achieve a particular aim. The PPDs mask is replaced here by a party-wide collective mask known as spin. Indeed, Blair's main legacy must be that he, as a psychopathic leader, has created a psychopathic party that fits comfortably into a nationally and globally psychopathic system.
There are media campaigns for Blair to become a "world vicar". Really! While I am willing to accept a life framework where the lunatics have taken over the asylum, some of these spectacular society stunts just push the whole farce a little too far. Blair is directly or indirectly responsible for millions of innocent deaths globally and has absolutely no moral foundation to undertake anything purporting to be for the good of anyone else anywhere ever! Desmond Tutu? Perhaps. Tony Blair? Get a grip...
