Passionate Blair

Tony Blair told the European parliament yesterday that "I am a passionate pro-European. I always have been."
This word "passionate" crops up remarkably often in Blair's rhetoric; it's the Bad Wolf of New Labour. Here are a few other examples:
I believe passionately that a fair society and a more efficient one go hand in hand." (Mais Lecture 22 May 1995)
I...believe passionately that this new era of opportunity must not divide our societies (Speech in Tokyo, 5 January 1996)
I passionately believe that we must disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction (Press Conference 13 January 2003)
I passionately believe if we don't ensure Saddam disarms, if we don't stand up for the authority of the UN, the result will not be peace but more bloodshed and devastation (Independent on Sunday. 2 March 2003)
I feel so passionately that we are in mortal danger of mistaking the nature of the new world in which we live. (Guardian, 5 March 2004)
We are a government that has fought for equality, for the Muslim community - right to have your own schools, introducing the law against incitement to religious hatred...I passionately believe in that principle of equality." (Muslim News, 25 March 2005)
My call is a passionate one: let's together make irreversible the positive changes that are happening in our country (preface to 2005 manifesto)
Why does Mr Blair use the P word so much? It's not as if it's a common figure of speech. Our puzzle deepens if we come from a Hobbesian or Oakeshottian perspective, in which the function of government  is precisely to restrain passions.
Is this an attempt by Mr Blair to appear sincere? Is it just that the guy's emotionally incontinent? Is it a symptom of the Dianafication of Britain, in which public displays of emotion matter more than reasoned argument? Is it a sign of emotivism, the belief that moral judgements are only expressions of emotion?
If not, what? And should we approve of this locution?
And another thing: Re-reading Blair's New Britain: My vision of a young country (the source of the earlier quotes, I came across this (p68):

Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards as the Tory right demand, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat.

Comments

[dearieme]

"I am a passionate pro-European. I always have been."

Except, of course, when I stood for parliament on a manifesto which promised withdrawal from the EU.

Passionate loathsome wee twat.

[Blimpish]

"Re-reading Blair's New Britain: My vision of a young country." Chris - you make me feel like I lead an unfulfilled life... You anyway neglected Mr Blair's announcement of the extent of his passion when he and the Missus were interviewed before the election.

On your actual point - yes, all comes back to the need to be sincere, authentic, meaningful. Positivism again - values and facts cannot be conflated, so value judgements are judged according the will, resolve, and feeling behind them rather than their accord with any interpretation of the facts. It's all very Existential.

[Blimpish]

From Big Micky Oakeshott, the 'politics of the felt need':

"This assimilation of politics to engineering is, indeed, what may be called the myth of rationalist politics. And it is, of course, a recurring theme in the literature of Rationalism. The politics it inspires may be called the politics of the felt need; for the Rationalist, politics are always charged with the feeling of the moment. He waits upon circumstance to provide him with his problems, but rejects its aid in their solution. That anything should be allowed to stand between a society and the satisfaction of the felt needs of each moment in its history must appear to the Rationalist a piece of mysticism and nonsense."

[Angry Economist]

I think Tony was just posturing himself as the international statesman again. He'll say owt to look good.

Perhaps he wants to be the first president of the EU!?

[jamie]

Isn't "passionate" part of the business school lexicon these days? As in: I'm in business because I'm passionate about dog grooming/industrial sponge/injection moulding equipment...

[HJ]

*Isn't "passionate" part of the business school lexicon these days?*

Indeed. I saw 'we're passionate about your laundry' on the front of a van yesterday.

[HJ]

This lady spotted it too (and makes an appropriate comment):

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/user/1761/weblog/10/15173

(scroll down to para beginning "It's a long drive from Oxford...")