Yo, Blair
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"Yo, Blair. How are you doing?" was a folksy greeting that United States President George W. Bush gave to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations ("G8") in St Petersburg, Russia, on 17 July 2006.
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[edit] The "Yo Blair" text
There was considerable interest both in the "Yo, Blair" phrase itself and in the ensuing impromptu conversation (known as the "Yo Blair text") which, supposedly private, was in fact picked up by a microphone. In the course of the exchange, Bush, among other things, thanked Blair for the gift of a sweater and, more importantly, referred to an armed conflict that had just broken out in Lebanon between Israeli forces and the Shi'a group Hezbollah ("What they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit") [1].
Analysis of the recording by CNN and some other news media after the episode made headlines transcripted the greeting as "Ya, Blair" or "Yeah Blair", though The Times, which published its text on 22 July, stuck to "Yo".
[edit] "Yo, Blair" as a catchphrase
"Yo, Blair" or "Yo, [any surname]" almost immediately became a catchphrase in Britain. When Blair rose to make a statement in the House of Commons on 18 July, he was greeted with cries from the Opposition benches of "Yo!" [2]. A cartoon by Gerald Scarfe in The Sunday Times showed Bush in a rocking chair, dressed as a sheriff, directing his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, "Yo, Condi. Better go check out that sh*t [sic]. Don't hurry" [3].
[edit] "Yo George"
An inhabitant of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, made homeless by an Israeli air raid remarked, "Why does Bush send billions of dollars of weapons to Israel and hands the Lebanese a few boxes of food?" [4]. This was the subject of a further cartoon by Scarfe, reflecting on the Anglo-American "special relationship", in which Bush, atop scenes of devastation, disbursed unequal quantities of munitions for Israel and aid for Lebanon. A small, plaintive Blair looked on and, raising his hand, asked, "Yo George. I just wondered if I might have a word?" [5].
[edit] "Yo Vicar": Private Eye
Predictably, the satirical magazine Private Eye began its regular spoof letter from the vicar of St Albion's parish church (the Rev. A.R.P. Blair, M.A.) with the greeting, "Yo!" [6]. The ensuing epistle contained a range of variants, "Yo, Running Scared", "Yo Vicar" and "Yo, Dubya" (the latter invoking a well established play on Bush's middle initial).
[edit] "Yo" as slang
"Yo" in American slang means roughly "hey". It has been used as an exclamation to attract attention since the 15th century [7], as in the cry, "Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883). In the early 20th century "yo" was used in lower middle class British slang as a "declaration of admiration ... to the softer sex by the sterner" [8]. From the late 20th century it frequently appeared in hip hop music and became associated with African American Vernacular English and also Afro-Caribbeans.
Former British Government Minister Denis MacShane observed that "Yo, Blair" was the American equivalent of "wotcher, mate" and that metaphorically Bush and Blair had been addressing each other using the French informal tu ("you") (as opposed to the more formal vous) [9].
[edit] "Pedigree Chum"
Some commentators detected in the "Yo Blair" encounter an air of condescension on Bush's part. For example, former British Foreign Secretary and NATO Secretary-General Lord Carrington reflected that "Iraq, and more recently Lebanon, have totally sidelined us. We have far less influence than we had. That 'Yo, Blair' exchange ... was so humiliating" [10]. Towards the end of 2006 an analyst at the US State Department, Kendall Myers, was widely quoted as admitting that, despite British efforts, "we typically ignore them - it's a sad business" [11].
Following a meeting in Washington between Bush and Blair on 28 July to discuss the situation in Lebanon, a London Times cartoonist Neil Bennett depicted, above the caption, "Gifts were exchanged before the Washington summit", a Burberry bag (an allusion to "Yo Blair") being swopped for a tin of dog food marked "Pedigree Chum" [12]. This was a reference to the charge of some that Blair had been acting as America's "poodle" (a metaphor which, though widely used towards the end of July 2006, dated back virtually a hundred years to 1907 when David Lloyd George referred to the British House of Lords as "Mr Balfour's Poodle" [13]).
[edit] Notes
- ^ The Times, 22 July 2006
- ^ Today, BBC Radio 4, 19 July 2006
- ^ Sunday Times, 23 July 2006
- ^ Esam Heider, quoted in Sunday Times, 30 July 2006
- ^ Sunday Times, 30 July 2006
- ^ Private Eye, 4 August 2006
- ^ Oxford Dictionary of New Words (1991)
- ^ J Redding Ware (1909) Passing English
- ^ Times, 22 July 2006
- ^ The Oldie, October 2006
- ^ London Evening Standard, 30 November 2006
- ^ Times, 29 July 2006
- ^ "A mastiff? It is the right hon. Gentleman's poodle": House of Commons, 26 June 1907. See also Roy Jenkins (1954) Mr Balfour's Poodle
[edit] See also
- United Kingdom as the 51st state
- Special relationship
- Anglo-American relations
- Foreign relations of the United Kingdom
- Foreign relations of the United States
[edit] External links
- Transcript: Bush and Blair's unguarded chat (BBC News, 18 July 2006). A revised version was published in the Times, 22 July 2006.
- Jon Stewart analyzes the Yo Blair incident (2nd video on the page)
[edit] Press comment
- Nick Robinson (2006-07-27). The poodle factor. BBC. Retrieved on December 16, 2006.
- Andrew Rawnsley (2006-07-23). It wasn't the 'Yo' that was humiliating, it was the 'No'. The Observer. Retrieved on December 16, 2006.
- Reuters (2006-07-18). Yo Bush! Blair mocked as U.S. poodle. China Daily. Retrieved on December 16, 2006.
- Ann Treneman (2006-07-19). Yo ho-ho it's Blair live and unplugged. The Times. Retrieved on December 16, 2006.
- Mary Riddell, Sunday Observer, 25 February 2007
