Tony Blair's Journey, the Queen and Cherie

Well I for one haven't bought Tony Blair's autobiography "A Journey" so this won't be a critique of the book. However a lot of it is out there on the internet and one can get a flavour of what it is about even though it would be dangerous to comment on certain specifics without seeing the context that they are in. Unsurprisingly reviewers have been taking a lot of interest in Blair's thoughts about Gordon Brown. And of course they are curious to see what Blair says (or alternatively doesn't say) regarding Iraq.

I'm not going to get into those things right now, I'm more interested in Blair's disclosures about his private conversations with the Queen. Although I wouldn't describe myself as a fanatical monarchist I do think that the present system in this country is basically a good one with the monarch having no real power but nevertheless serving a unifying purpose. Now I may well be wrong in detail here but believe that when Parliament is sitting the Prime Minister has a weekly audience with the Queen. Furthermore I think that HM invites the PM and spouse to spend some time with the Royal Family at Balmoral.

Even if it's not spelt out wouldn't you think that conversations with the Queen would be 100% confidential. It seems not though with blabbermouth Blair. One newspaper I hear reckoned that the Queen was furious with what Blair disclosed in his book. Whether that is true I don't know but she would have every reason to be. All I can say is "how very Blair" - I'm not surprised about him. He is one of the new rich and powerful who doesn't get it when it comes to the right sort of behaviour to adopt. Harsh words perhaps but true. He and Cherie seem to be made for each other, I remember writing before - on the 12 May 2008 to be exact - about Cherie explaining that their youngest child Leo only came into this world because she didn't have any contraceptives with her when she and Tony were staying at Balmoral. Back then I stated that I was appalled that she put this information about Leo's conception into the public domain - to my mind it was grossly unfair to Leo to make this stuff known.

Cherie is at it again, once more demonstrating that she's not the "sharpest tool in the box". This is about Lord Mandelson's memoirs "The Third Man" which I think came out last July. In it one can read a note that Cherie had once written to him in support when Mandy was in trouble over the home mortgage scandal and had to resign. Included in the note was a vitriolic attack against one Gordon Brown. It may be that Mandelson didn't quote Cherie's note word for word, it could have been that he relayed just the gist of it. Anyway Cherie has now thrown a wobbly about it, stating through her lawyers that being a private note there was no way it should have been included in a book. I don't know the legal rights and wrongs here but I would have thought she was incorrect. The letter to Mandelson's publishers is demanding that the offending bit of prose be removed.

Let's step back a bit, take a deep breath and look at things logically. The book is out there in the market place, it isn't in draft form, are those books already printed supposed to be returned to Harper Collins for the offending page to be replaced? Up until now only a relatively small part of the population (those who have purchased the book) will know about the note and even then not every reader will remember that detail. But by making a fuss Cherie has ensured a much much bigger audience will have heard about it, rather silly if she doesn't want the whole world to know the contents of this note.

Of course it's just conceivable that Cherie really wanted a much bigger audience to know what she thought of Gordon Brown and this was a way to do just that. A bit like a double bluff in a sense. But is Cherie bright enough to have thought of such a thing?

Tony Blair and the Iraq War

I've just been watching some of the video of Blair's evidence at the Chilcot Inquiry on their website (well someone has to do it!). As usual Blair comes over quite convincingly but I don't think that I have the time or stamina to sit through six hours or whatever it is. There is so much one could write on the subject but I'll just make a few comments via bullet points:

• Whatever conclusions are reached by the Inquiry at the end of the day I don't think those who felt strongly about the war at the time (I mean both pros and antis) will change their viewpoint. It is very much like the two sides in the hunting debate or the climate change debate once someone has an entrenched position that is it. Additional evidence is unlikely to sway them in the other direction.
• When Blair became PM in 1997 I don't think he had thought about foreign policy much but when he paid a visit to Kosovo things changed. Witnessing the situation over there he decided that an interventionist policy was needed where there were occasions of that type. Some people referred to Blair as Bush's poodle with reference to Iraq but I beg to differ. I think that Blair developed a missionary zeal and assuming that Saddam had WMD and wasn't going to disarm then Blair had no problems in invading Iraq.
• I think in his evidence on Friday - I didn't get to that bit watching the video this evening - Blair mentioned the figure of 100,000 Iraqis dead as a result of the war. Estimates vary a lot, some have used this lowest figure whilst others have used greater numbers up to one million in fact. I think that Blair volunteered his figure without prompting and I am wondering whether he was trying to spike the questioners' guns. If he got in the 100,000 dead in his evidence first then it might be overlooked that this was the very lowest estimate of several.
• Blair tried to lay the blame for the problems in Iraq post invasion on those pesky Iranians coming in and spoiling the party. No Mr Blair, it's you and Mr Bush who are culpable - before the war there was some sort of strategic balance between Iraq and Iran, post war there was obviously an imbalance in the situation, effectively a vacuum where Iraq is concerned. It is perhaps not too surprising that Iraq's hated neighbour wanted to exploit the situation. The coalition was not prepared for the aftermath, they should have been - no excuses.
• Blair tried to make a strong point about Iraq possibly supplying terrorists with WMD post 9/11. Whether this might have happened one day I don't know but there was zero evidence of any connection between Saddam and Al-Qaida. This reminds me of the fact that following the 9/11 attacks Vice President Dick Cheney set up a special unit to try every way possible to find a connection between the two. I believe that many many Americans were misled into believing that Iraq was somehow involved in 9/11 thus giving extra legitimacy to the invasion.

Much more could be added to this blogpost but I'll leave it at that for the moment.

Clinton lies for all to see on YouTube

A week since I last blogged: where's the time gone? I'm going international with this entry which is something I don't do that often. But I can't ignore the story of how one of America's serial liars, Hillary Clinton, has recently been caught out. It all centres of course around her repeated claim of visiting Bosnia in the nineties when husband Bill was US President and landing with her daughter Chelsea under sniper fire. Unfortunately for this absolutely appalling woman film footage has been unearthed showing her story to be totally bogus, she didn't have to run to avoid the bullets, in fact everything was calm and under control. If you were to type 'Hilary Clinton Bosnia' into YouTube you would be confronted with numerous videos showing the reality of the situation. There are one or two very good spoof videos too.

So how has Mrs Clinton reacted since she was found out? Apparently she "mis-spoke". I think I'll add that to my lexicon, just in case I'm rumbled telling porkies. Seriously though she and Bill ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman") will tell any number of barefaced lies in advancing their cause. Just a couple of other examples from that loathsome woman: she had said that she was named Hillary after Sir Edmund Hillary who it will be recalled was one of the two men to conquer Everest in May 1953, the other person being Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. However Hillary Rodham Clinton was born in October 1947 when Edmund wasn't a household name. Another instance of her deliberate lying: she said that daughter Chelsea was jogging around the World Trade Centre on September 11 2001. No she wasn't. Chelsea was at home watching the tragedy unfold on television.

Clinton's premier crime which has raised the hackles of so many is her absolutely blatant lying to push forward her personal agenda. But second to that, and far less commented on, is her total lack of judgment in thinking that she could just get away with it. Surely she and her advisers were aware of the film crews in Bosnia when she made her visit and that at some stage the reality would be broadcast. This is where the internet becomes all powerful - as I noted earlier there are a number of places on YouTube where you can view the film footage and also some of the subsequent fallout. One of these videos alone has had almost 2 million hits at the time of writing. In the old days it would be possible to hope that most people might forget such lies, radio and newspaper reports would not always have a lasting effect. But in this highly visual age things are very different. It only takes seconds with a broadband connection to view the footage and the film isn't going to vanish from this site anytime soon.

Perhaps I ought to comment at this point that yes politicians habitually lie, it's stock in trade for them. Take Tony Blair and Iraq for example. We know without doubt that the dossiers on WMD were "sexed up" to use that oft repeated phrase. But I believe that the seeds for Blair's mistaken Iraq adventure were sown a few years before in Kosovo of all places. Why? He and his wife visited the heavily oppressed people in that part of the Balkans and from that point on Blair believed, rightly or wrongly, that our foreign policy should be an interventionist one, for him it was all about a moral crusade. I think with Iraq it was the fact that Saddam was a tyrant that partly drove his policy and not entirely being Bush's "poodle". In Mr Blair's case therefore blurring of some facts, massive over emphasis on others, was all part and parcel of the necessity in his eyes of removing Saddam. Don't get me wrong, I'm no apologist for Blair, once it became clear that Saddam was never a threat to the west I was very firmly on the side of the anti-war folk. But I think Blair thought he was taking this country into war for a just cause even though deceiving the population on such a serious matter as going to war is in itself a very serious matter.

With the Clintons though any lies will do in order to get your sticky fingers on the levers of power. I believe that the next test of democratic opinion regarding whether it should be 'Obama' or 'Clinton' is on 22nd April in Pennsylvania. Let's hope that Clinton is soundly defeated.

Blair - much ado about not much

Just when you thought that the name 'Tony Blair' had passed into history up he pops as the lead item on the BBC TV news. For a long time now it's been known that he would as likely as not join his wife as a member of the Roman Catholic Church. If he was still prime minister then I can understand that his becoming a RC could have been a piece of news of some consequence bearing in mind that his government have been passing legislation of considerable concern to Catholics. But in his present role as a peace envoy for the Middle East is his 'conversion' of such importance that it should be the lead item on the national news? Hardly, I would have thought. The announcement of holiday company 'Travelscope' going into administration causing more than 10,000 people to rethink their holiday plans this Christmas was surely a much bigger story.

I do appreciate how difficult it can be when the BBC's editorial panel discuss the order of news items to go out in a bulletin. They will seldom get it right for all viewers or listeners. But to make Blair's new religious allegiance, something that was expected, the big story of the day just seems barmy to me.

Brown bottles it

The vocabulary of the English Language is wonderfully wide and varied and it's fascinating by using just one word or phrase it's possible to sum up a particular event or situation perfectly. I'm sure the three words (and just 14 letters) "Brown bottles it" will resonate for some time. Now I don't have an allegiance to any political party but what is obvious to me is that Gordon Brown has scored one of the most spectacular own goals ever. Not only has he made himself look totally inept and inadequate but he has spurred the Tories to get their act together and look like a reasonable alternative to this government.

Just a week ago things weren't looking good for the Conservatives and to some Gordon Brown's vision of that party being totally routed so that he could run the country with virtually no brake on his decision making looked a distinct possibility. Fortunately for democracy the Tories had such a good conference that there is now some sort of equivalence between the two main parties. Interestingly I recall Margaret Thatcher's attempt to bury socialism didn't totally work out although Tony Blair had to rebrand his party as 'New Labour' to get elected. So if we are to have Parliament run via adversarial politics (and whether that is a good idea is another question) then it is better I think for the Opposition to be reasonably strong.

Let's be absolutely clear about one thing - Brown's problem is of his own making. 100%. The media ran with the election story for sure and one would expect them to. But Brown could have stopped all this weeks ago. He has played it very badly indeed.

An interesting comparison with Blair crosses my mind. Tony Blair for all his faults is to me the ultimate 'rubber man'. What do I mean by that? Well when he made a mistake, made a poor judgment on a situation, he was able to erase it from his mind and very quickly bounce back again. One example I remember was when he was slow hand clapped by the ladies of the Womens Institute. Now I recall this and other embarrassments well enough but fortunately for Blair these aberrations were soon forgotten by most people. However Brown is a very different kettle of fish. Like Blair a control freak and a man with a very large ego. But I don't think that Brown will be able to shrug off this humiliation in the way his predecessor would have, he will brood on it.

One person who I shall watch with interest on TV this evening is Rory Bremner whose satirical programme 'Bremner, Bird and Fortune' has returned to our screens on Channel 4. Recent events are manna from heaven for his show. And how will Brown do at PMQs on Wednesday I wonder. We shall soon see.

What a week that was!

What a week that was! Well not especially so for me I have to say but in terms of happenings on the national scene it most certainly has been a momentous week. Not only did the Glastonbury Festival end in a mudbath (I've already commented about this) but there has been really serious flooding in many parts of the country. Although the greatest amount of damage appears to have been in and around Sheffield with therefore a lot of media coverage very many other places have suffered particularly in 'middle England'. Worcestershire was one of these but I am pleased to say that one brother living in that county has not been affected, likewise another brother in Herefordshire. I've luckily never suffered flooding but for those who have had to evacuate their homes because of flood water well my heart goes out to them. The loss of personal possessions, the fact you can't live in the special comfort of your own home, the sight of all the mud when the water does drain away, it must be unbearable.

Wednesday saw Tony Blair receive a standing ovation in the commons after his final PMQs and David Cameron got the Tories to join in! Then off to the Palace to surrender his position as Prime Minister to be followed by Gordon Brown who was asked by the Queen to form a new government. In his first speech outside No 10, and with his wife at his side, GB repeatedly used the word 'new'. We shall soon see I expect how new he really is. Comment on his new cabinet will come on another blog entry. Suffice to say that the glitzy showbiz feel of Tony Blair has already gone - I don't think we'll see Gordon Brown taking his summer hols at the home of some pop star or another. Certainly he is a very different creature to Blair and that their often fractious relationship has survived till now is remarkable.

On the terrorism front Brown and his new home secretary Jacqui Smith have already had to deal with threats that are thought to be Al-Qaeda inspired: two Mercedes cars with explosives ready to be detonated have been found in London but were fortunately made safe before the terrorists could do their dirty work. Then two Asian men tried to cause mayhem at Glasgow airport by driving a jeep at the main terminal meeting with the evident intention of causing an explosion. Two men were arrested as part of that incident considered to be related to the two failed attempts in London to cause mass carnage. There have now been further arrests.

Yes, it certainly has been a week!

Progress in Northern Ireland

I backed Blair in my previous post and will do so again. Now I very much doubt that this will be habit forming but credit must be given where it's due. Although Mr Blair will mainly and understandably be remembered for the hell of Iraq he should also be remembered for his success in moving the peace process forward in Ulster, building on the hard work of John Major.

Seeing Sinn Fein leaders entering 10 Downing Street used to be quite gut wrenching as was the early release of criminals from both sides who had been actively involved in the killing. But it now seems that cooperation between the nationalists and loyalists could really be the end of the troubles.

There would have been a time when it was impossible to imagine Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley in the same room together. But incredibly it has now happened.

Blair right, Archbishops wrong

I have a good deal of respect for the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, normally less for Tony Blair. But when it comes to the matter of whether we should apologise for this country's part in the slave trade these two religious leaders are hopelessly wrong. I do hope that Blair sticks to his guns and not formally say "sorry". As with most countries our country has done many things in the past which now appear reprehensible and the slave trade is just one of them.

Saying 'sorry' for something that happened centuries ago is a total misuse of the word. It implies responsibility for something that has happened over which the apologiser in fact has had no control. It must be remembered that attitudes were so different back then. What about the Africans that actually did the deals with British slave traders, surely they are just as culpable. If a formal apology is made then this opens the floodgates for the never ending list of dirty deeds performed by our ancestors.

The whole thing is so crystal clear to me - I just can't understand why these intellectual church leaders are unable to see it.

Tony Blair visits Devon again

"Tony Blair visits Devon again". All right I'm being sarcastic now! Mr Blair was in Devon yesterday and Thursday, it was his SECOND visit to Devon in the almost ten years of his premiership. This wasn't because of a guilty conscience in that he had been neglecting us it was because he made a speech to a selected audience of about 600 on board HMS Albion at Devonport. His lecture was one of a number he is making regarding our Nation's Future and concerned itself about our armed forces. It appears to have been a real mishmash of thoughts but it seems that he believes that the UK should combine a defensive role with an interventionist one. Bloggers are generally tearing his lecture to shreds for example see the entry here this morning by Tom (http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/).

My view is that if the war in Afghanistan is questionable the one in Iraq is downright wrong. What is patently obvious is that we cannot conduct two significant wars at the same time and that our armed forces are seriously overstretched; it should be remembered that the top brass have been warning the government about this in a very public way.

Once again I have to say that Tony Blair is almost an irrelevance now; why should his MPs, his ministers, world leaders and the public at large take any notice of a prime minister who in months or even possibly weeks will be departing the scene. I certainly wouldn't!

Tony Blair and those long haul flights

Tony Blair has just got back from another foreign holiday - this time in Florida courtesy I understand of one of the Bee Gees pop group - and has been questioned on his love of long haul flights that he and his family take for their holidays. Everyone should know by now the rapidly increasing emissions put out by the expansion of cheap flights and many of us want to see a curb on their use. I would agree that we need a healthy airline industry but don't see any need for its relentless expansion. Isn't one long holiday a year in farflung foreign parts enough for the Blairs? No evidently. I remember, at the time of the Foot and Mouth crisis of 2001 which caused much hardship to our tourism industry, Tony Blair was persuaded to take some holiday in this country. He spent just a few days in Cornwall before going abroad as usual. At the time I thought it was just a gesture and that he didn't really enjoy it. This is a far cry from Harold and Mary Wilson going to the Scillies or to the Thatchers regularly staying with friends somewhere in, I believe, the Padstow area.

Surely the Blairs could limit themselves to one foreign holiday per annum and then have another holiday in the westcountry for instance. He might learn a little bit about us rather than neglecting us! He says he is going to make his personal trips abroad "carbon neutral", is Cherie doing this as well? It seems that a popular way to salve one's conscience is to plant some trees but as trees expire CO2 over a long period of time compared with the very short timeslot of emissions during a flight I would like to see some figures as to how long it takes a tree to grow to compensate. But of course aircraft emissions should take into account a lot of other things other than individual flights. Here are a few activities stacking up carbon emissions: design, testing and manufacture of the aircraft, servicing, repair and decommissioning of planes, construction of airports (manufacture of concrete is particularly bad for the environment). I bet these things aren't factored in! I could extend the argument to another level: if we import food and goods by plane from abroad then these are part of our CO2 contribution even if the plane was to start in China for instance, it is we who are doing the buying.

This is not to wave a stick at the airlines but more a case of pointing out the damage they are doing. There are life enhancing reasons to jet off somewhere and of course many families are spread out over different countries, continents even but as to two or three holidays abroad each year that is just too much.

I despair of Blair

The more time goes on the more I despair of Tony Blair! If ever a government leader is past his sell by date it is him. His silence on commenting on Saddam's execution is absolutely deafening; Margaret Beckett, John Prescott, Gordon Brown and now "Downing Street" itself have spoken so what is holding back Mr Blair? The aforementioned politicians have spoken fairly diplomatically about Saddam's hanging and the circumstances surrounding it (I could have written the script for them!) so why is our leader so reticent? He could have made similar comments without creating a diplomatic incident I'm sure. We are told he will talk about it during this coming week so why is he holding back?

Let me advance a couple of alternative theories: we know that Tony's mentor George W is going to make a speech to the Americans in the next few days so perhaps Bush has told Blair to "sit and stay" for the moment. Another possibility, perhaps Iraq has so got to Blair now that, while he is sunning himself in Florida, he just can't face up to dealing with such things. One has to remember that Blair is a control freak and what two things are exercising his mind right now? I would suggest that they are how we now proceed with the quagmire that is Iraq and what happens with the "cash for honours" investigation being carried out by Yates of the Yard. These are events that are taking on a life of their own and have largely spun out of Blair's control.

Listening to Blair and looking at his body language he seems to have lost his edge; certainly the swagger has gone and he is in an incredibly weak position with it seems very little power to influence anything. I suspect he will still put in some good performances at PMQs unless Cameron can floor him with totally unexpected questions but so far as his party and the country are concerned he has lost all authority. We will now see more and more ministers aligning themselves with Gordon Brown (it will be funny if Reid gets the job) so now we have a government in power but with no real direction or purpose. I know that Blair let it be known that he wasn't seeking a fourth term as leader when there were anxieties about his long term health but what a terrible misjudgement on his part for creating all this uncertainty.

But the bottom line is this: Blair falsified the reason for going to war with Iraq, a country that had not declared war on us and which was not attacking our interests. This is fundamentally wrong. Blair is now reaping the whirlwind, the trouble is that hundreds of thousands are dying because of the folly of Bush and Blair.

Inquest starts at last

Yesterday saw the start of an inquest into the deaths of 6 UK servicemen, based at RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall, who with a US serviceman were killed as a result of a collision between two Sea King helicopters in the Iraq war back in 2003. Out of the 6 three came from Cornwall and one came from Devon. I was very pleased that on the inquest's first day relatives of the dead were able to voice their own moving tributes to those they had lost.

It was a subject discussed on the Radio Devon phone in Wednesday lunchtime. One impassioned member of the public was very distressed about the long delay between event and inquest and I have to say how I agree with him. Clearly the families can have no sense of closure on this awful tragedy until the inquest is completed. Justin Leigh, who hosts the programme, stated that one problem causing the delay was the fact that the bodies being repatriated to this country generally are flown to RAF Brize Norton and that the inquests are all carried out at Oxford as is happening in this current case. I really do not understand why some of these inquests can't be carried out elsewhere in the case of bodies being returned from abroad if it would shorten the agonies of the loved ones.

Just one further comment. I may be wrong but I don't believe that Tony Blair has written any letters of condolence to the families of those who have died in Afghanistan or the over 100 who have come back in coffins from Iraq, or have visited the families. If he had I think it would have been made public by now. With his bogus sincerity he and the other leading party leaders will acknowledge the deaths in Parliament but that seems to be it. Blair will always be remembered for taking us into a war on a false premise, that is his legacy.

Post Office closures announcement

Yesterday Trade and Indusry Secretary Alastair Darling made the expected announcement about closing post offices. These will number 2500 but we don't know at this stage which ones in Devon and Cornwall will come under the axe. Many of our postmasters and postmistresses will have a less than happy Christmas this year.

But of course it isn't just those on the list that could go. At present individual post offices are getting a government subsidy; if this is reduced or worse still removed then more POs will go. And of course the post office card account is going, to be replaced with what? Because these additional post offices will disappear in their ones or twos no doubt HMG are hoping that the general public wont really notice and, even if they do, the government wont take any responsibility that's for sure. As usual we have been subjected to Labour spin: Tony Blair says the public are to blame for using them less. Hardly surprising is it when the government takes business away!