Balfour's poodle

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Balfour's Poodle (ger .: Balfour's Poodle ) is a political slogan in the rhetoric of the United Kingdom . It was used by David Lloyd George as a derogatory term for the House of Lords . The term is still used today in a modified form adapted to the current political situation (e.g. Thatcher's poodle ) in political debates, speeches, newspaper articles and caricatures .

Historical background

Arthur Balfour around 1910

The term Balfour's poodle was first used on June 26, 1907 by the liberal politician David Lloyd George , who in a speech in the British House of Commons, the second chamber of British parliamentarism, reviled the House of Lords as Balfour's Poodle . He was alluding to the unconditional allegiance of the - predominantly conservative - members of the House of Lords vis-à-vis the conservative opposition leader in the British House of Commons, Arthur James Balfour : Since the liberal governments of Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith , to which Lloyd George was a minister, passed numerous laws Parliament, whose passage in the lower house the relatively weak opposition around Balfour in this chamber could not prevent due to their numerical inferiority to the government faction , Balfour and Lord Lansdowne , the leader of the Conservatives in the upper house, came to an agreement in the upper house - in which the Conservatives one Majority possessed - to use the veto power of the House of Lords to prevent the final passage of some liberal bills. The servant obedience of the members of the House of Lords - who rejected most of the liberal bills by virtue of their right of veto - to the opposition leader in the House of Commons led Lloyd George to his vicious criticism that the House of Lords was therefore "no longer the watchdog of the constitution, but Mr. Balfour's poodle" ( "Not the watchdog of the Constitution, but Mr. Balfour's poodle.").

This catchy criticism of the members of the House of Lords, who, due to their rank and nobility, would see themselves as the "born lords of the country", met with a great response in the British press and has since been taken up again and again in a modified form, adapted to the respective situation . The person who distinguishes himself through his disproportionate servility towards someone else is dubbed a poodle , while the person who participates in this excessive loyalty is moved to Balfour's place as the “poodle owner”.

In 1990, Robin Marshall described the performance of British politician John Major in a House of Commons debate on October 23 of that year with the words: "Major comes out of this looking like Mrs Thatcher's poodle." Critics had given Thatcher's follower Howell James the same nickname.

Recent use of the term

More recently, British Prime Minister Tony Blair in particular has been reviled as "Bush's Poodle" by British critics of his course of unconditional support and allegiance to the American Bush administration, which in Great Britain was often viewed as a self-denial and indictment.

The American comedian Bill Maher took up this criticism in 2004, in the run-up to the US presidential election, in the 30th episode of his program Real Time , in the intro-gag of which he showed a parodic "campaign spot" of the Bush election campaign in which "the World leaders "advocate Bush's re-election" with absurd statements - Blair's "arguments" in favor of Bush's re-election were a series of yapping, growling and barking noises that implicitly referred to his perception as Bush's "lap dog".

In the more recent past, the Japanese Prime Minister Jun'ichirō Koizumi was also criticized by left-wing and liberal critics of his course of unconditional support and allegiance to the American Bush administration in anti-terrorism policy and in particular in the Iraq war, which in Japan is often seen as self-denial, indictment and violation of pacifist constitutional principles was scored as reviled Bush's poodle . To distinguish it from Tony Blair, Koizumi was also known as Bush's cocker spaniel , "Bush's Pacific poodle" or "Bush's lap dog".

literature

  • Roy Jenkins : "Mr. Balfour's Poodle. Peers v. People", Collins, London 1954.
  • David Powell, "The Edwardian Crisis. Britain, 1901-1914.", Palgrave, Basingstoke 1996. ISBN 978-0-333-59543-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David Powell: "The Edwardian Crisis. Britain, 1901-1914.", Palgrave, Basingstoke 1996. pp. 43 f.
  2. ↑ Karel van Wolferen : Japan-US Relations Prosper on Isolation. In: Japan Focus. November 13, 2005, accessed April 4, 2010 .
  3. ↑ Chalmers Johnson , Tokyo Let's Loose Lapdogs of War , Los Angeles Times , February 18, 2004, p. B13. Adapted from: Edward A. Olson, The Independent Institute, November 18, 2004: Homeland Security, Learning from Japan