The new Ethiopia

Forget Blair's 'difficulty' now he has lost Blunkett, what is Our Dear Leader going to say about this?

'Riot police shot dead at least 23 people, including several women, in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa during a second day of demonstrations over disputed elections. The continued violence is a deep embarrassment for Tony Blair, who has championed the Ethiopian Prime Minister as belonging to a "new breed" of reformist African leaders. Ethiopia is one of Britain’s biggest aid recipients. As scores of wounded were taken to ramshackle hospitals across the capital, gangs of youths shouted anti-Blair slogans at Britons living in the city. One British resident working for the United Nations told The Times: "They were not threatening, but there is a lot of anger over Britain’s support of this government. They shouted things like: ‘Tell Blair to open his eyes’ and ‘Tell your government what is happening here’." "When is the West going to realise this government is a bunch of morons"?'

With friends like the Ethiopian regime, who needs enemies like Iran or Syria?

At the moment, Blair's Ambassador to Ethiopia has issued a 'note of protest' to its ally about what is going on. Issuing a mild 'protest note', of course, was all that the British Government could muster in 1935, seventy years ago, when Fascist Italy began its bloody colonial conquest of Ethiopia. Then again, in 1935, the British Government was itself in control of huge swathes of Africa and so was hardly best placed to take the moral high ground against Mussolini when he tried to take a piece of what was left for himself. I am sure that the Blair regime today, even after its war crimes in Iraq, will be sure to claim for itself the moral high ground and denounce Ethiopia's authoritarian turn and illegal murder of innocent people.