I spent most of a fun day outside Downing St shouting “Boo!”, and giving a lot of interviews to foreign television media. One very pretty Spanish television journalist interviewed me under the impression I was John Major. I expect some Spaniards tomorrow might be puzzled by Major’s radical views. I rather enjoyed aspects of this. She asked me “What was it like when you left Downing Street, Prime Minister Major” and I replied “I think it was sunny, oh yes.” She looked very confused.
Arriving back home I did a very good, long documentary interview for ITV, this time as me again, then watched the TV. Adam Bolton on Sky News gave a remarkable bit of information – Gordon Brown has been a personal friend of Henry Kissinger for a long time, and the last time Kissinger came to London, Brown and Kissinger spent two hours alone together in 11 Downing St discussing Kissinger’s latest book. That should disillusion those daft enough to believe that Brown’s five year support for Bush’s wars was a aberration forced upon him by circumstance.
Meanwhile Blair, for whom the House of Commons was never more than a vehicle for personal interest, has quit it even sooner than decently possible, so not a penny of the tens of millions of pounds about to flow his way from corporate America will have to be declared in the register of member’s interests.
Beyond satire is Blair’s appointment as Middle East envoy. Blair is the most wholehearted Zionist ever to lead a major British political party – including Balfour. He is at one with the religious right in the United States in having a gut Zionism perversely engendered by fundamentalist Christian beliefs.
Remember, Blair is leaving today because he was forced to announce his departure last summer. Even the eternally supine Labour Party revolted over Blair’s support for the Israeli attack on the Lebanon. Blair is going because he sacrificed his last remaining political capital to block a UN call for a ceasefire. He did this, knowingly and deliberately, to give the Israelis another two weeks to devastate Southern Lebanon from the air.
This is the man who, in the Rose Garden, moved the UK away from the EU consensus and lined us up uncritically with George Bush’s professedly pro-Israeli policies. All that is without counting the buckets of Iraqi arab blood on Blair’s hands. No self-respecting Palestinian representative, of any party or group, should have any truck with Tony Blair.
Blair is the most famous liar in the World, since the Iraqi WMD debacle. Why should anybody trust him as an envoy?
Shabash, Craig!
Heartily seconded.
"No self-respecting Palestinian representative, of any party or group, should have any truck with Tony Blair."
I suspect the current Fatah leadership will be more than happy to do so…….
I agree with almost every word. The only thing larger than Blair's ambition is his overwhelming conceit. After Iraq, after Lebanon, after the Saudi scandal; how could anyone take Blair seriously as a neutral Middle East envoy? It's ridiculous, beyond farce, lurching into the grotesque!
How anyone with Blair's reputation can imagine that he could function as an envoy in the Middle East of all places, is beyond me. But maybe we're missing the point here? Isn't Blair's real role to use his rhetorical abilities and charm to gloss over and sell Western policies, not to the Arabs, but to Western public opinion, especially in the United States?
In this context his intervention can be of collosal value. Blair will once again be able to emote, empathize and wear his passion on his sleeve. Blair will be selling a fundamentally immoral, destructive and dangerous Western Middle East policy all over again, just like before the invasion of Iraq. Prepare once again to see hypocracy and cynicism made flesh.
How extraordinary that Blair can abandon British interests overnight, when all along his critics have said that he consistently sublimated British interests to US interests. Could anyone seriously consider that he could possibly represent anything other than US interests in the "quartet"?
Superb stuff.
"Blair… sacrificed his last remaining political capital to block a UN call for a ceasefire. He did this, knowingly and deliberately, to give the Israelis another two weeks to devastate Southern Lebanon from the air."
Absolutely correct. Remember the cluster bombs. Thousands upon thousands dropped in the last 48 hours after Israeli withdrawal had been agreed, in the attempt to make the land uninhabitable. All actively supported by Blair – the ammo was being flown in from the US through UK airports.
"Meanwhile Blair… has quit [the House of Commons] even sooner than decently possible, so not a penny of the tens of millions of pounds about to flow his way from corporate America will have to be declared in the register of member's interests."
This is the most useful explanation of Blair's precipitate move I have seen today. Others, such as Clare Short, have puzzled on this, pointing out that the proferred explanation doesn't wash – there is absolutely no need to resign as an MP to take this envoy job.
I am very much hoping that the "indict Blair" campaign will start stepping up, not winding down, its efforts now that he is no longer protected by high office. A picket or demonstrations outside his new London house wold be a good start.
"This is the most useful explanation of Blair's precipitate move I have seen today. "
Yes, I think Craig might have nailed that one!
As for Blair's latest opportunity for troublemaking, characteristically Hamas reacted with an honest and accurate assessment of the situation, while Fatah tried to curry favour with the enemies of its own people:
"But Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad said Mr Blair had not created a good impression with the group.
"According to our experience at the time he was the prime minister of Britain… he was not honest and was not helpful in solving the conflict in the Middle East," Mr Hamad said.
He added that Mr Blair had constantly adopted "the American and the Israeli position".
But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the newly-appointed envoy had given him "the assurance that he will work to arrive at a peaceful solution on the basis of two states". "
Hamas criticises Blair envoy move
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6247…
I wonder if Blair sees this as an opportunity to erase his tainted legacy by continually being associated with the concept of peace in the Middle East? Perhaps he even imagines, that if he keeps at it long enough, memories will fade and he could even receive a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize! Surely this award would be the ultimate accolade for his efforts to promote peace in the region?
Strange as it seems, perverse even, Blair may end up with a peace prize!
"I wonder if Blair sees this as an opportunity to erase his tainted legacy by continually being associated with the concept of peace in the Middle East? Perhaps he even imagines, that if he keeps at it long enough, memories will fade and he could even receive a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize! "
That would fit his MO, certainly. Mind you, given some of the recipients perhaps he'd be quite at home with the Nobel Peace Prize.
By the way, I see our honourable representatives in Parliament didn't fail to take another opportunity to confirm what a bunch of contemptible lying hypocritical scumbags they nearly all are:
"the standing ovation he was afforded across the House – the first time, I believe, that a British PM has received such treatment since David Lloyd George announced the end of the First World War"
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/pandora/arti…
No doubt many of the very same MPs who will admit that Iraq was a mistake or even a crime, and insist that they would not have supported it if they knew then what they now know, nevertheless saw no problem in standing up and applauding the "leader" who was responsibe for needlessly implicating us in it, and the deaths of probably a million people.
I also stood outside Downing Street to watch Tony Blair leave office yesterday morning. Not as a demonstrator alas, although I was questioned and searched by the Metropolitan Police under the
Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. They gave no reason for the search, but I assume it was because I had a bag on my bicycle. Fair enough, cyclists could
be suicide bombers!
Then six more police surrounded me
and without a word, one of them pointed a camera in my face. I made it clear by turning away that I didn't want my picture taken, but they would not leave and this ridiculous stand off developed of me facing the wall and them boxing me in! I eventually gave up fearing they might arrest me. I did manage to snap a photo on my mobile of the policeman taking my picture. A striking image of Big Brother right in my face!
This whole procedure left me angry and was an exercise in harassment simply for standing on the street to watch a national event. The irony being that you can stay at home and watch endless shots of Downing Street from the Sky-copter, but try to do it in person; watch out.
chippedandtagged,
We are promised a 'war on terror' that is to go on for generations; this is only the beginning. Imagine how the stormtroopers will behave in the future, when they have more power and we have less rights. God help future generations.
chippedandtagged
I've been out of the UK for several years now, but do the police have the right to question and search you and take your photo without giving any reason? If so, do you have no comeback at all? Maybe you should now be chippedandtaggedandquestionedand searchedandphotoed?
Foddy
That part of Whitehall is withing a 'designated area' of the 'Serious Oranised Crime & Police Act' of April 2005. In such areas the police have considerably enhanced discretionary powers. Also, anyone making any kind of political statement or protest within such areas commits an offence unless they have obtained prior police permission so to do. For example, in December 2005 Maya Anne Evans was found guilty of breaching Section 132 of SOCPA for reading out the names of soldiers killed in Iraq at the Cenotaph. It was deemed a political protest and she was given a conditional discharge by Bow St Magistrates. There have been many such prosecutions. SOCPA is one of a litany of laws and Maya Evans a good example of the (relatively mild) abuse of police power they make possible, that confirm this country is well on the way to fully-fledged police state status.
Sabretache – Yes, I'm well aware of SOCPA, but I was not protesting, merely watching a 'public' event. I now know that under S44 of the Terrorism Act the police 'have no right to compel' anyone to have their photo taken. This is why half a dozen of them surrounded me while one of them took a mugshot. This must be their standard intimidation tactic. But what a complete waste of time and resources. Thank god I don't look Brazilian or have 'Mongolian eyes' or I might have been executed there and then. Sorry to be flippant. Maybe I've led a sheltered life, but this is the first time I've experienced such outrageous treatment. All my fears seem confirmed, they no longer serve us, they are there to control us and to make us comply. Arm yourself with knowledge of your rights, or what's left of them.
Chippy – My remarks were really addressed to Foddy; but commiserations – and no, you're not being flippant. I know EXACTLY what you mean. I had a high national profile throughout the campaign for hunting that ended with the Hunting Act. My experiences with the Police and particularly the Met Police during that time were seminal and turned my view of the police and our so-called democratic government on its head. Make no mistake, from locally respected and accountable upholders of reasonable law, they are morphing into the uniformed (often armed and ultra-aggressive) enforcers of a thoroughly oppressive State. I have friends that received serious injury at the hands of the Met Police in Parliament Square on 15th September 2005 for no reason other than that they were forced by swelling crouds behind them against riot-police lines. I narrowly escaped similar injury myself. I saw EXACTLY what went on and have no need for the official whitewash report. The police quite obviously had different instructions than on the dozens of previous protests – they were out to bang a few heads and that's exactly what they did. It will never be forgotten by the community I belong to.
It's funny you should mention Henry "Anything that flies on anything that moves" Kissinger. They say that satire died the day that Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize, but clearly that is not the case since Blair has been awarded the Middle East Mediator job.
Even if we discount the illegal invasion of Iraq and subsequent deaths of 650,000 people, there is still the issue that he totally sided with Israel in the Lebanon crisis. Not only did Britain assist with arms deliveries but we also blocked a ceasefire so that Israel could "win". This we know for certain from John Bolton.
What they should have done is given him a shovel and parachuted him into Iraq to clear up the mess he has helped to create.
We should keep an eye on Tony Blair not that he's stepped down. Since his poodle-like devotion to all things Bush after 9/11 something about this one way relationship has never made sense. Compared to Bush Tony Blair seems competent, and intelligent yet has defended some of the stupidest things any government has ever done to his own demise. I say follow the money. The only thing that explains Tony Blair is probably the riches he's about to bask in as a reward for a loyalty that has the whole world dumbfounded. I think now that he's out of government we are about to be enlightened as to why Tony Blair up till now does not compute.
Only Israel benefits from these endless Middle East wars. Iraq is the beginning. As we commit war-crimes in Baghdad, the US gov't commits treason at home by opening mail, eliminating habeas corpus, using the judiciary to steal private lands, banning books like "America Deceived" from Amazon and Wikipedia, conducting warrantless wiretaps and engaging in illegal wars on behalf of AIPAC's 'money-men'. Soon, another US false-flag operation will occur (sinking of an Aircraft Carrier by Mossad) and the US will invade Iran.. Then we'll invade Syria, then Saudi Arabia, then Lebanon (again) then ….
Final link (before Google Books bends to gov't demands and censors the title):
http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.as…
"Blair is the most famous liar in the World…"
Not while George Bush is alive!