Politics of Harry Potter - Characters Compared To George Bush, Tony Blair, and Saddam Hussein

Characters Compared To George Bush, Tony Blair, and Saddam Hussein

Newsweek magazine asked Alfonso Cuarón, director of the third film based on Rowling's Prisoner of Azkaban if the villainous wizard Voldemort still reminded him of George W. Bush. Cuarón confirmed, "In combination with Saddam. They both have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people. I read books four and five, and Fudge is similar to Tony Blair. He's the ultimate politician. He's in denial about many things. And everything is for the sake of his own persona, his own power. The way the Iraq thing was handled was not unlike the way Fudge handled affairs in book four."

Slate Magazine also says Rowling takes jabs at the Bush and Blair administrations suggesting the Ministry of Magic's security pamphlet recalls the much-scorned Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System). The author also suggests that Azkaban, the wizard penitentiary, is a stand-in for Guantanamo Bay.

Rowling has never confirmed these interpretations in Harry Potter; however, when the then Chancellor Gordon Brown once asked her to endorse the Labour Party while Tony Blair was Prime Minister, Rowling refused. Rowling attacked the Blair government's policy on single parent families. She said that Labour could do "a good deal more" and then donated £500,000 to the One Parent Families charity to set an example. Rowling said that Brown's measures for children 'would have made a real difference to my family's life' when she was poor. Blair stepped down shortly before the release of Rowling's seventh book, and Brown was appointed Prime Minister. Rowling subsequently donated £1 million to the Labour party during the 2010 general election which Labour lost.