The Other Minister (was Re: Is Umbridge a commentary on British govt. ed

[meglet2]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Elizabeth Snape" 
<snapes_witch at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" <tonks_op@> wrote:
> >
> > Tonks:
> > Don't know about Umbridge. But I thought that "the Other 
Minister" 
> was 
> > Tony Blair and he was waiting for a phone call from President 
Bush. I 
> > am sure that was be a commentary on the U.S. president. And I 
loved 
> > it!!! "that horrible man".
> > 
> > Tonks_op
> >
> 
> That was my first thought too, but the timeline isn't right.  HBP 
> starts the summer of 1996 and Blair didn't become PM until the next 
> spring, and of course Bill Clinton was president then.
> 
> I have no difficulty imagining John Major calling Bill 
Clinton 'that 
> horrible man'!!  (Poor Bill, the Brits even made fun of him 
in 'Love 
> Actually.')
> 
> Snape's Witch

You are right no doubt on the timeline being wrong but I suspect this 
is JKR's notorious problems with maths and dates slipping up again. I 
think that most of the UK proably read this as a not very covert 
reference to Tony Blair and Bill Clinton with even a little snipe at 
the Blair/Brown rivalry thrown in with the comment that even the 
Chancellor had been unable to remove the portrait. I know that I and 
most of my HP fan friends smirked to ourselves over that one. I think 
she was letting current realities at the time of writing HBP creep in 
and not paying too much attention to the date events in the book were 
supposed to be happening. JMO of course.

Mercia
>