Chilcott

After the Chilcott report is finally made (if it ever is) there should be two further enquiries:

1. Why was the report commissioned only in 2009? The invasion took place in 2003.
2. Why are we still waiting for Chilcott?

MPs seem to think the report should not be published before an election. I'm not sure why. Westminster badly let the country and the world down with their 'yes' vote. They were completely out of the step with the nation. I didn't see any marches in favour of the invasion of Iraq. Blair may have been the arch-villain on this side of the Atlantic, but there was a 412-149 vote in support of his proposals. The voting split, by Party, was as follows:

Party	For	Against
Con	146	2 (+1 tell)
DUP	5	0
Ind	0	1
Ind Con	1	0
Lab	254 (+2 tell)	84 (+1 tell)
LDem	0	52
PC	0	4
SDLP	0	1
SNP	0	5
UUP	6	0
Total:	412	149

BLAIR SPEAKS

You'd think GREAT LEADER TONY would have the decency to jump off a tall building or at least shut up.  

Vote for Johnny's Retirement Package

What makes the politicians think we’d be even remotely interested in voting for ‘police commissioners’? We can’t even be interested in voting for themselves. I see that John Prescott is putting himself forward for one of new positions. He’d become a figure of fun long before he retired from the ludicrous position of ‘Deputy Prime Minister’. Apparently, he’s not even going to be the official Labour Party Candidate. No doubt they’ll wheel out some other has-been or never-was for thr election, just as will the Tories Party and the LDs.

By the way, Blair believes...

With the tenth  anniversary of the World Trade Centre murders coming up, the BBC had Blair on the radio this morning to be interviewed. I had the misfortune to hear it.

I found the way Blair repeated 'by the way' literally dozens of times very irritating. No, Mr Blair, it's not 'by the way' that the world has taken such an ugly turn of events over the last ten years. You bear a major part of the responsibility for this, just as you bear a major part of the responsibilty for the deaths of half-a-million people.

But what really infuriated me was the way Blair met every sensible point put to him by the interviewer by saying things like 'I fundamentally disagree...' or 'I believe...' As if this made everything all right! Why was this man given air-time?  I blame:

• the BBC for taking the lazy way out and wheeling Blair out for 'interview' at this time
• all the Labour and Tory MPs (especially the members of the Labour Cabinet) who allowed themselves to be taken in by Blair's words. 
• all the people (this includes me) who put Blair in power in 1997.