Tony Blair sat on the wall - Tony Blair had a great fall?

The one thing Tony Blair will never have is a great fall. He may have a slow slide into ignomy, but his unbelievable "well, look, right, yeah!" talent gets him out of any spot of bother. Honed to perfection whilst at Fettes, where he practiced his arts on housemasters and fellow pupils alike, it has taken him through life as the master of spin and political double entendre. No puns are ever intended. Just double meanings that the listener conveniently hears in single measure.

John Chilcot got a few "rights" from Blair yesterday at the Iraq Inquiry. I think the panel deserve a medal just for sitting it out. None of this will change a thing. Blair is convinced he is correct in his thinking. He now is quite at ease saying it was all about regime change. Getting the unvarnished truth out of him is like trying to get ferrets out of a sack without being bitten. Virtually impossible. That's probably why Chilcot has such a weary look about him at the end of sessions.

I saw some of it, but after a while I lost interest. I don't think I'm alone. Adam Boulton wasn't heaving his shoulders so much on Sky News. Always a sign that somebody is yesterday's man. Blair was that man yesterday.

Tony Blair's Iraq War finally undone by Lord Goldsmith

It had to come to it. Lord Goldsmith has spent years looking like a man who knows he's keeping the truth clenched behind his teeth. The Chilcott Committee, inquiring into the Iraq War decisions, submitted a written question to Lord Goldsmith. This arose because Lord Goldsmith was "uncomfortable" with Tony Blair's remarks in 2003. Blair told MPs that while a second UN resolution was "preferable" there were circumstances in which it was "not necessary" - in the event of the use of an "unreasonable veto" by a Security Council member. He also told the BBC's Newsnight programme on 6 February 2003 that if a country vetoed a further resolution "unreasonably" then "I would consider action outside of that".

The inquiry panel asked Lord Goldsmith if he felt those words were "compatible with the advice you had given him".

Lord Goldsmith replied simply "no".

We sort of knew that all along. The trouble with this war and all the carry-ons surrounding it is that Blair's government might as well have consulted a couple of educated weasels in getting their arguments across. The vast majority of the country still think Blair cooked up his reasons. He was going to war and that was that.

None of the main players comes out of this well. And for all their posturing Iraq is still a place that offers little or no security, a government of dubious merit, and a people desiring real peace instead of petty violence, car bombings and crime of all sorts.

Blair goes before the inquiry on Friday. Maybe this time he will crack, but I'm not holding my breath!

Blair to rally Labour supporters

So the Spiv-in-Chief is coming out from the deep recesses of his counting house to speak to the faithful in Sedgefield. Lots of cries of "Tor-Nee" will go up from those who still think he is a saviour of sorts.

The Conservatives think he's got a lot to hide. That counting house has some very odd contraptions in it for counting the cash in a special way. It's got Cameron's lot somewhat excited. However, they should be a bit more circumspect before casting aspersions. After all, Lord Ashcroft sees fit to live and breathe part of his existence in Belize because he fears being a pauper in Britain. If I were confronting Ashcroft I'd tell him straight. Dump this central American existence and be a real John Bull.

Tony Blair was depicted as being a political actor in BBC4's "How To Win An Election" last night. This was predicted in 1964 by Sir Alec Douglas-Home. Or at least the possibility of having an actor in politics. What Home would have made of Blair I do not know. However, Blair is totally unruffled by criticism. He seems to relish the fight. The Conservatives would do well not to give him so many free plot lines for his propaganda.

Tony Blair's oily Iraq War

So the Iraq war was nothing to do with oil? How come the dodgiest prime minister ever ends up being an adviser to an oil company with interests in, guess where, Iraq? It has emerged that Blair has been paid for advising the UI Energy Corporation, a South Korean oil firm with interests in Iraq and the US. Douglas Carswell MP says, "It stinks".

Tony Blair has been a chancer all his life. Everyone knows that and if they don't they must either be mad or extremely naive. Or possibly from another planet or a parallel universe. There is an outfit called the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments which is supposed to delve into such things as former prime ministers living off former political decisions. As Carsell says, "It seems that the former prime minister of the United Kingdom has been in the pay of a very big foreign oil corporation and we have been kept in the dark about it. Even now we do not know what he was paid or what the company got out of it. We need that information now. This is revolving door politics at its worst. It's not as if Mr Blair has even stepped back from politics, because he is still politically active in the Middle East. I'm afraid I have no confidence at all in the committee that vets these appointments. It's no good telling us these deals may be commercially sensitive - we are talking about the appointment of our former prime minister and the public interest, rather than any commercial interests, must come first."

Exactly right! However no amount of "political vetting" will hide the fact that Blair is, and probably always will be, a dodgy dealer. The South Koreans just hired Arthur Daley's posh protege.

Tears of a spin doctor

Alastair Campbell got all weepy yesterday on the Andrew Marr Show. He feels aggrieved at not being believed about his testimony over the Iraq War handling. He told Marr he had been "through a lot on this". Well, no doubt he has, but so have millions of others for extremely different reasons. Some have been killed, others maimed and the truth itself has been sorely abused. Campbell came across as a man deeply troubled. I have no doubt he believes in this New Labour project. He gave his all to see Tony Blair esconced in No.10. But he must surely realise that he has a reputatation for being a devious liar at worst and a man who dissembles the facts at best. Maybe its all catching up with him.

Even if his version of events has some element of truth in it, most people can never believe that he and Blair were not up to something. All the evidence points to the fact that Blair agreed in advance with Bush to go to war over Iraq. It was an invasion. We were not targeted or at risk. Blair did not listen to anything he did not want to hear. Perhaps he believed Bush's crazed notions about this war "being over by Christmas". Such nonsense has always been trotted out to give a false sense of hope. The American neo-cons, led by Bush and his apparatchik Rumsfeld, thought they could make a killing over oil. No such luck. But the devious types are still rooting around trying to make a fast buck with "security" and "advice".

Campbell may cry a river of tears and part of me feels sorry for him. But in the end, his own rather viscious method of political operation has eventually caught up with him. He's in a Matilda situation. Nobody really believes him anymore.

Blair believes his own bull****!!

Tony Blair takes the biscuit, he really does. We now know that most of his warblings on Friday were a fine art of deception. He's deceived his own brain, it seems.

Now it is the turn of Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the head of the armed forces to sit in on the Iraq Inquiry. He said defence chiefs "simply didn't have enough time" to source everything they wanted for the invasion of Iraq. Ministers were warned of a "serious risk". He told the inquirers, "The problem of course was that we simply didn't have enough time, as it turned out, to do everything we needed to do before the operation started."

Soldiers died unnecessarily as a result. So what about the cloth-eared Blair? What did he think when told all this? And I assume Straw, Hoon and the rest of the New Labour cabal heard these words. What a shower! A conniving bunch of self-delusional fools. They just didn't want to hear what they didn't want to hear.

I hope Blair is recalled before this inquiry. Because if not, his weasel words will just be shunted into the documents and we will be told nothing more than that.

Blair's lucrative deal with hedge fund that bet on bank failures

I've just spotted this from the Daily Mail. What a character Blair is turning out to be. Hope they are dusting off those lie detector machines. I suggest the Iraq inquiry gets at least a dozen buzzing away whilst he "Yeah, but, no's" his way through his testimony.

Blair will be paid hundreds of thousands of pounds by Lansdowne Partners, one of London's biggest, yet lowest-profile funds, to give them a speech. What on earth do they expect him to say that will make them sit up and think "Wow, that's a whole new take on the world's problems"?

Through a hedge backwards fund is more like it. It's getting more crazy by the day.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245967/Blairs-lucrative-deal-hedge-fund-bet-bank-failures.html#ixzz0dff4Q03E

Blair seen as a liability

When was it ever different, I said to myself on seeing this piece in The Times. Apparently senior Labour figures have voiced concerns that Tony Blair’s appearance at the Iraq inquiry in the coming weeks will wreck any prospect of him helping the party at the general election. Helping them out? They'd be far better advised giving him a wide berth. The man is generally seen as being trouble on two legs. Blair's entourage are none too pleased with their hero being asked to explain his fibs and foibles. There is growing criticism being voiced within the former Prime Minister’s inner circle about Gordon Brown’s decision to hold the inquiry with public hearings in the run-up to the election. It was nicely put by a stooge as “The whole f***ing thing is Downing Street’s fault.” And these people used to run the country?

These Blairite types want him to "nuance" his testimony at the inquiry. What's new. He's nuanced everything since he knocked on his housemaster's door seeking attention. He nuanced his politics, he nuanced his religion, and he's currently nuancing his lucrative business career. He nuanced the Labour Party and no doubt nuanced all the mirrors in his house "Well, yeah, mirror, mirror on the wall, who is, yeah, the greatest nuancer of all?" "Oh, you are, Great Nuancer!"

Gordon Brown has had his Granita days. Tony Blair is not much use to the election or the future. New Labour dies a death in May!

Tony Blair and his Iraq notions!

So Tony Blair only had a "notion" that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the Middle East region and to the rest of the world. Well I have a "notion" that Blair is a dissembler, a deceiving spinner and a man whose politics were mainly built on the "notion" that all the people he met whilst gallivanting around the world would help him become a multi-millionaire. The bonused bankers achieve wealth through making money out of thin air. He has made money out of hot air.

These are "notions" but what the hell. We all have them these days. Nobody has much to say for politicians mainly because they have too many "notions". I'm glad Blair's gone. He was always on the make with his "well, yeah, so" type of approach to it all.

The fact that he sleeps at night is because he believes his own bullshit. I doubt if he ever will get round to thinking in any other way. What a life, eh?

Tony Blair lied about Iraq says Bob Ainsworth

Bob Ainsworth knows what's what. Stick a pin in him and he warbles about almost anything. He's got two chips on his shoulder (a bit like John Prescott) which are that he came from humble beginnings and that he thinks people take him for a fool. Well, I for one don't knock him for either. Good on him getting to be Defence Secretary. Just as the Earl of Onslow suggested to Prescott that he should feel proud of his achievements rather than to feel irked, the same goes for Bob.

My beef with Mr. Ainsworth is this. He knows more than he is letting on. Or at least letting on to those that should be knowing about his thoughts and his views. Bob was at a public meeting in Coventry at the Aldermoor Farm Primary School. At the meeting he was apparently asked about Iraq. To astonishment he said that "Tony Blair had fed lies" to the Labour Party about the war. He then went on to say that he "was an ordinary man from a council estate in Coventry. I don't sit in ivory towers".

So the audience got to hear that he thinks Tony Blair is a liar but that he didn't do anything about this because he is basically too naively simple to take it further. Wow! And how did I hear of this? Via the BNP website, because the BNP candidate for Coventry North-East, Tom Gower, was at the meeting and reported it all on the BNP site.

Do I believe Gower's reporting? I don't know, but why should I not? Interestingly, this has not been reported anywhere else as far as I can see. The only piece I can find is on the Coventry Telegraph's site, where Bob Ainsworth talked blandly about Afghanistan not Iraq. That's nearly three weeks ago and is all a very different take on Mr.Gower's.

So is the BNP making it all up and Ainsworth never said anything about Blair being a liar? Or is the mainstream media suppressing it because this was "leaked" by the BNP? Or what?

The truth is not quite as it seems. My point in revealing this is that it will only aid the BNP's election chances if the mainstream gives them cause to reveal unpalatable facts and allows them the chance to dress up the information revealed. I think we need to know if Bob Ainsworth actually called Tony Blair a liar ("fed lies") because it drives a coach and horses through the Labour party's defence of the war.

The next election will be fought over transparency. The truth getters against the obfuscators, liars, spinners and cheats. I just hope someone other than a BNP candidate can unearth the prattling lies.

Tony Blair for EU President? Stuff of nightmares!

Give me strength. Gordon Brown is said to be actively lobbying for Tony Blair to be the new-fangled president of the EU monolith. Why on earth would the good people of Europe deserve this?

Can you imagine it? Tony Blair knocking on the EU door. "Anything I can do for you Europeans?". He's been knocking on doors and cheesily moving into position since his weaning days. I very much hope there will be those who see this as not in our best interests, I really do.

He is a dissembler par excellence, his Iraq war history an example of low politics. His ambition outsmarts his convictions. His convictions appear to be at odds with his conscience. His general message is one of opaqueness rather than transparency. There must be other candidates, surely?

Blair, the bloody-handed one!

When a young Tony Blair knocked on his housemaster's study door and enquired - "Anything I can do for you, sir?" - it's a crying shame that the teacher couldn't show him the future. But maybe if he had been able to it would have made no difference. Blair has a stubborn streak of arrogant self-certainty about him. He was certain that Gordon Brown was not the face of New Labour for the general election of 1997.

He was also certain he had to twist and spin in order to come up with a reason for the Iraq War. Yesterday he got a verbal smacking in the face from an angry father of a deceased soldier. The father told Blair he had blood on his hands. 59 year-old Peter Brierly said, "As far as I am concerned that man is a war criminal. I can’t bear to be in the same room as him. I cannot believe he’s been allowed to come to this reception. I sat through that service listening to people preaching to me about tolerance but I don’t think anyone should be forced to tolerate being in the same room as him. He has made £14million on the back of taking us to war and they are now talking about making him president of the EU. But I believe I believe he’s got the blood of my son – and all of the other men and women who died in that war – on his hands."

That's three diabolical things in one remark. Blair fiddled the war, he's making dosh by the bucketload now, and he's cheesily knocking on the EU door asking "Anything I can do for you?" I know the answer to that one, but I don't run a rude-worded blog!

Blair is some character. Any vestige of socialism went with the pixies. Now it's hard to fathom out how much he's absorbed of catholicism. He's basically keen to milk the system which is a red flag to me that the man is driven by a desire not to be a failure and to be liked. The problem is that he has driven himself into exactly the opposite camp - distrusted and despised, dare I say.

However, the cheesiest thing Blair did was signing autographs on the programmes of yesterday's event. What a man!

Irish give Blair the green light

Tony Blair is still cheesily promoting himself as a possible President of Europe. Now that the Irish have done the right thing by the Brussels Regime by saying "YES" to the second referendum, it only leaves the Poles and Czechs to ratify this so-called constitution for Europe.
In a European Union world you're lucky to get a vote on how the monolith should be run. If you do get a vote, you won't be able to say "NO" because that's not an answer you can give. It's, YES,YES,YES all the way home. We won't get a vote on Blair's coronation. The edifice is made up of undemocratic types who genuflect most casually at the altar of democracy.

I'm wondering if Napoleon was the last continental person able to say "NO" and get away with it. The Empress Joséphine was not treated too well by this impirical poseur. In fact he let it be known that "power is my mistress". The European Union wants us to know that power is its mistress. I get the distinct impression that the "citizens of Europe" are just vassals of this overbearing, interfering and intrisically undemocratic organisation. It has been set up rather like a beehive. The drones (us ordinary voters) just get to vote for emasculated national governments. In turn, the leaders of these governments get to buzz around the queen (Tony Blair!) and formulate all manner of ideas and legalistic programmes of which the drones are permitted, at best, to rubber stamp with a "YES" vote.

And we exported democracy to Afghanistan? I think we didn't do a bad job considering how well the last election there went!

Stop Blair!

This has just been linked to me. The Stop Blair! petition. Anybody can sign and 1500 have so far.

Petition against the nomination of Tony Blair as "President of the European Union"

Tony Blair to be King of Europe?

Well, not king exactly. More president of the EU edifice, chief nosey-parker and general busybody par excellence. Apparently Lady Kinnock, gravy train expert rider, thinks Blair had the "strength of character" and "status" to take on the job. She further waffles that "People know who he is, and he could step into this new role with a lot of respect and he would be generally welcomed." Is she deluded? This is a man who has a very tenuous grasp of the truth, a man who is generally devoid of political principle and who has a mental shuffling capacity known to no other man. I say man, because Lady Kinnock seems to be prepared to follow his lead and foist this dodgy dossier developer onto the European people.

William Hague is spot on with his analysis. "Any holder (of the EU presidency) is likely to try to centralise power for themselves in Brussels and dominate national foreign policies. In the hands of an operator as ambitious as Tony Blair, that is a near certainty. He should be let nowhere near the job." Nowhere near at all. Outer space is too close!

President Blair? No thank you!

Tony Blair fears being exposed in Iraq "show trial"!

So, the scheming still goes on. Tony Blair is conniving behind the scenes to make sure his plots and furtive planning do not come out. As I say, before he meets his Maker the truth will out. He will find that there is a whole phalanx of people, from high to low, demanding that this enquiry is in public as far as it can be.

Why is he so concerned? Because he fears that he would be subjected to a "show trial" if it were opened to the public. Show trial? Does that tell us something? I think it does. Blair has a reputation for mangling the truth and behaving like a three-card trickster. No wonder Gordon Brown had shouting fits with him. But this will be no show trial. It will be a simple case of telling the truth. Blair may be able to gild the lily in private, but a public spectacle of shiftiness will be noted by the people.

It is said in the Guardian that Blair is believed to have been alarmed by the prospect of giving evidence in public and under oath about the use of intelligence and about his numerous private discussions with US President George Bush over plans for war. Again, that only reflects the number of red flags shooting up the pole.

The clamour for a public enquiry has started. Gordon Brown, in his usual gulping way, failed to offer any sincerity in the House of Commons over the need for secrecy. Nick Clegg puts it rather well. "If this is true about Blair demanding secrecy, it is outrageous that an inquiry into the biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez is being muzzled to suit the individual needs of the man who took us to war." If the public mood has anything to do with it, Blair will be giving evidence in public. Then he will have to decide once and for all whether he is a truthful man or an inveterate dissembler.

Tony Blair's cash injections

By the time Tony Blair leaves this earth to meet his Maker we will know two things. That he did a secret deal with George Bush about the War on Terror and then stitched up the House of Commons. That his property empire has been funded almost exclusively by the taxpayer whilst he was in Parliament. The Additional Costs Allowance and Tony Blair were made for each other! He even had the brass neck to claim two days before he scarpered as PM.

He has earned about £16 million since leaving office, through public speaking, directorships and a book deal. Now a lot of this money has probably gone to repay loans, but isn't it a bit rich that he used the "system" to get a leg up. Normal mortals have no such luck. Blair was an opportunist from Day One.

The Daily Telegraph asks a pertinent question - "The question of how Mr Blair was able to obtain a £3,467,500 mortgage on Connaught Square, which was more than 18 times his salary at the time, has always been surrounded in mystery." Precisely!

Tony Blair takes Pick 'n Mix to Church!

Tony Blair has not been long in the Roman Catholic Church before he is questioning the Pope's authority and casting aspersions on some of the laity. He reckons some older Catholics have "entrenched attitudes" whilst most congregations in his opinion were more "liberal-minded". He's talking of the subject of homosexuality.

His idea of entrenched attitudes is probably about those that adhere to traditional teaching. If he observes that some, both "liberal" and not, are prone to be stand-offish to those they disagree with, then he may be right. But it's a bit rich for him to be demanding that religious leaders must start "rethinking" the issue.

Is the Pope to head up a Blairite commission on the issue? I sincerely hope not. The stuff of nightmares! The Church is not some kind of New Labour think tank.

Tony Blair may rail against certain things, but a casual interpretation is very damaging. His inteviewer asks the question, "Can you foresee a situation where in your lifetime or mine, we would have a pro-gay Pope, for example?"

Blair responds, "I don't know, is the honest answer. I don't know. Look, there are many good and great things the Catholic Church does, and there are many fantastic things this Pope stands for, but I think what is interesting is that if you went into any Catholic church, particularly a well-attended one, on any Sunday here and did a poll of the congregation, you'd be surprised at how liberal-minded people were." That's it - all polls and focus groups! He implies by innuendo that the Pope is "anti-gay". This is a gross calumny.

The Church is totally opposed to cruel and hateful attacks on anybody, including those of a homosexual orientation. But it can never compromise the sacraments to suit the passing needs of society.

Blair launches his faith foundation

Tony Blair, now a Roman Catholic, is still, to my mind, a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde character. That may sound terribly uncharitable and even downright unChristian, but I do think he has a few "issues" to confront. As an Anglican, apparently of the High Church tendency, he never really gave much support to Catholic issues. His ambivalence on homosexuality, abortion, and general moral matters seemed paramount in the New Labour pantheon. His wife, Cherie, and his children are all Roman Catholics. However, Blair thought it inappropriate to convert to Rome whilst Prime Minister. I cannot think why. Maybe he was under excruciating pressure from the secularists in the party, who are a bedevilment of control freakery. Maybe he felt the British public would rise up against him with Cromwellian fervour, seeking his head on a plate. I may find his politics unsavoury, but I do think Blair has his moral compass in the right direction. He's just a bit hazy with the pointing skills.

His new organisation is simply styled The Tony Blair Faith Foundation. It has three aims - to promote faith as a force for good, improve awareness between religions and tackle poverty and war. The last one is a bit hard to take. For those of us steadfastly opposed to the War in Iraq, both on the right and left of politics, this can only be taken seriously if he apologises for usurping international law with dodgy dossiers and fake facts. Incidentally, John McCain was talking recently of his understanding that every intelligence agency believed Saddam Hussein had WMD. If McCain had bothered to contact the Swedish embassy in Baghdad at the time, he'd know this was nonsense. It suited all concerned in the stoking up of the battle cry to believe such stuff. Regime change had never been a legitimate reason for declaring or for waging war. Tony Blair was sailing very close to the wind indeed!

Tackling poverty? He could take on the generals in Rangoon for a start. They seem quite at home with suffering and destitution and that was before the present calamity. In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe's thugs are dragging Christians from the very altar rails of their churches. Some Catholic Mugabe has turned out to be! No regime change here. Just platitudes and pleasantries.

I wish Tony Blair well in his endeavours. All of us who profess the Faith would support such laudable action. Maybe he has had a Road to Damascus vision of how to confront the ills of society. It's just a pity that he gave us ten years of New Labour government, a lot of which was at odds with Catholic thinking. A more public admission of previous policy errors would give a lot of credence to his current ambitions.

Blair scared of Brown says Prescott

John Prescott apparently urged Tony Blair to sack Gordon Brown but he claims the prime minister was "scared" of his chancellor. This is what Prescott says in his memoirs. Amazing these New Labour people. All making money, or trying to, faster than a one-armed bandit.

The former deputy prime minister said Mr Blair reneged on several promises to resign in favour of Mr Brown. So it was true. No wonder Brown was so moody. He still is. Prescott describes Brown as "annoying, bewildering and prickly". He says Mr Brown would sulk silently in meetings so often they had to be abandoned, while on other occasions, he could “go off like a bloody volcano”. So it takes one volcano to know another volcano, does it?

Prescott adds very neatly that he brokered "hundreds" of reconciliation meetings and phone calls between Brown and Blair. Perhaps a new career at Relate beckons. After all, Pauline (Mrs.Prescott) has given him a few tips. It would appear that, as with quite a few politicians, the wife comes to the rescue.

I shan't be reading Prescott's book, not because of him, but because I don't think it will tell me much more about him. What a sorry lot they all are.