Poodlegate
post-mortem

Short shrift with the crap:

Deliberate lie ... one of the big deceits

'Ludicrous' evidence

Arrest Blair campaign: Clever earnest George Monbiot taking the initiative after the forensic failure of the Chilcot chin-wag

Wafflegate ~ Poodle-meets-Piaf.

AA Gill his usual terrifying self. By the jodhpurs of Jera! That man can cut to the chase when it stirs him.

"Tony Blair won every skirmish, every battle, but still lost the war ...

Lord, I thought, he’s finally gone and done it. He’s left parochial politics and gone into intergalactic diplomacy and had a severe facelift. The skin was drawn tight, the mouth tugged into a morticised grin. It wasn’t a good look.

Fear is nature’s cosmetic surgeon. It had grabbed Tony Blair by the back of the neck, pulled and twisted.

Someone — probably a coterie-of-attendants someone — had dressed him in a blue suit, a white shirt and a red tie. He’d been swagged in the flag. Our flag. The American flag. Also, the cheese-eating surrender monkeys’ flag. Red, white and blue, the most successful flag colours in history. Don’t put green in your flag: countries with green flags have troubles.

We were looking at a man who was looking at what he thought might just be his own personal Nuremberg trial.

Then Sir Roderic Lyne, one of the interrogating panel, stumbled into his warm-up question. Couched in the avuncular curlicues of academic politeness and mumbled deference, he propped himself up on the pillows of sub-clauses and caveats and something astonishing happened.

Across the table, like a CGI trick, a coup de théâtre: Blair’s old face reappeared, emerging relaxed and confident, the eyebrows arched. It was the familiar mug the protesters outside in the rain were wearing as masks. The angst let go. Ladies and gentleman, fear has left the building.

He knew this wasn’t going to be a war crimes tribunal: this wasn’t even truth and reconciliation. This was the wine committee of his club, the senior common room of a honeycoloured college. He was on top of this. He was all over this."

And so forth. Do read him.

Do also read Dominic Lawson in the S Times on why Blair can never admit to regrets:

"If only PD James had been on the Chilcot committee. After six hours of watching Tony Blair effortlessly deflect and disarm his interrogators at the Queen Elizabeth II centre on Friday, how could one not be struck by the contrast with the courteous evisceration that James recently performed on the BBC’s director-general?

Instead of the pointless Baroness Prashar of Runnymede, whose style is to scowl, put on a cross voice ... and then ask the most puffball questions imaginable, we could have had Baroness James of Holland Park, who under a patina of deceptive deference would have used her novelist’s grasp of human psychology to get to the heart of a matter that goes beyond military strategy and mere politics."

Who can resist reading on?

Not I, for sure, and nor my penchant for posting beautiful women on the flimsiest excuse. Look at that wonderful face ~ Baroness James radiates directness and moral certitude, everything the 'morticised' Blair features so palpably lack. It's almost an insult to adorn this post with her likeness.

Wherever the bleagh Bliar was - atop his Poodle pot or wherever - I still felt physically sick watching this turbid and fallacious mind at work.

How many decent people he dumped in the excrement and how many more are finding themselves - out of misplaced honour - having to clench their kegels and utter fork-tongued drivel on the Blair behalf.

Yo, Blair! You want some of America? Poodle this 

WANTED: Blair 4 war crimes

Attorney-General U-turn

The legal case for the invasion was "lamentable".

That's Elizabeth Wilmshurst, no less. The war was unlawful without express UN backing ... "extraordinary" that Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had only been asked for his opinion days before British troops went in.

So how's about that understating Lizzie Wilmshurst CMG, eh?

There was me working up a ponderous plaudit favouring hi-^5s levant and a chalcoterie of chickadees bien embonpointées ... but the Βασιλόπιτα-cious Baddeley beat me to it.

"Go Elizabeth W". (So prolix, that man)

Goldsmith goes to USA ~ Magical volte face vis-à-vis guerre.

Phone call from White House to P Kennel:

"Yo, Blair! Who's this Goldstein fucker I'm hearing 'bout? Sounds like a Jew boy to me."

Poodle: "Actually, George, Peter's our Attorney General."

W: "Don't care if he's your janitor, Teddy. Ours was chief leaf blower before he came onside. Bats for Team America now. Make sure your Goldblatt faggot does the same. Gotta go."

Digressing as usual but I remember where I was ~ my main man, SimBa, about whom I was telling t'other Simon just the other day

"Come summer, our boy is going to totally OWN your 'Korakiana Idol'."

My spy on the terrace (aka Lunchtime O'Uzaki) tell me that he's been practising up "Get me to the Saint on time" and that Demetre 'Jim' Richardson has a killer solo in the wings.

Get those basso profundo 'do-do-doos' ready: with Badass and the Kora-Brumettes bringing the cup home, we're looking at a wunnerful summer.

But honestly, is nowhere safe or sacred from these irrelevant 'insertions' of scantily-clad young gels? [Memo from Circulation Dept: "NO".]

Well, just be grateful that I don't find out about Selma Blair and use HER as an excuse to doll up the pages.

Memo from Marketing: Go 4 it.

Dr David Kelly ~ a name written in infamy and one that will also be engraved on the Poodle kennel wall of shame.

An inquiry looking into the death this top weapons inspector has been blocked by an order sealing documents for 70 years.

Or not. Such is the rage at these cover-ups that it's hard to keep tabs on the clanging hammer of justice as it smites its way to Freedom.

(Whooh, by the cocked leg of Cluvia - such poesie. Time for a cleansing song from Folk's First Lady of Rock stardom, RIP the marvelous Mary)

I trust that one of the many hard times Blair looks set to go thru will be over the "unsatisfactory circumstances known about Kelly's death".Honestly, this shilly-shallying chimpanzee has a Dorian Gray of a track record: God knows what teflonic powers have enabled him until now to squirm from the crunching boot but now the 'picture' is up for scrutiny and all decent folk squirm with glee at the rotted-flesh ghoul to be revealed.

And try watching this brief clip without fumbling thru the tuckbox for the Nagant.

Lawyer's memo contradicts Jack Straw's evidence. You don't say.

Rallying round ~ Anti-war campaigners plan mega demo for Blair @ 'Quiry, 29th

£250,000 tax-payer security fees for the Poodle to cock a leg at Inquiry

Organised Rage ~ au barricades

Blair briefed and prepped - scant chance Poodle will face probs

Permission to blab: Top legal adviser at Foreign/Comm'wealth Office allowed to break with protocol, disclose advice given to ministers

Calling Chazzer

Saddam - Why not Exile? Tee hee - don't you love the build-up? Can you hear can you hear the Thundah! Campbell A must be hissing and sloughing in envious admiration at the way this is picking up momentum. The question of tough questions has become THE tough question of itself.

By the time Poo' B'air gets to trot his Crufts stuff he will have the trots big time - with his famous "people" looking and listening on, no one will dare lob a softie question, and I don't there's anyone left inclined to do so. Talk about the the Lion and the Poodlecorn.

Blair Third degree ~ When The Wall St Journal deigns to point a laser at Poo'gate, I pour another Fernet Branca and settle down for a good read.

As the WSJ notes, Blair will undergo a public grilling over the U.K.'s role in the Iraq war.

Before a five-member panel, Blair is 'expected to face questions about the legitimacy — and even legality — of the U.K.'s involvement in Iraq ... confronted about whether he committed to overthrow Saddam Hussein long before the run-up to the war, and quizzed about the U.K's preparedness for the invasion.'

All good stuff and the Journal keeps the pressure on, noting that,

"The war and Britain's deep recession have soured voters on the Labour régime.

The former prime minister has taken a series of hits:

1. The rejection by European governments of Britain's attempts to install Mr. Blair as the European Union's first president
2. Questions about his effectiveness as a U.N. special envoy to the Middle East
3. His acceptance of lucrative consulting work from companies such as the J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. ~ leading to accusations — including from within his party — that he has cashed in on his status.
4. The Pudeldendum also makes paid speeches, including a series of talks coming up to London hedge fund Lansdowne Partners Ltd."

All terribly encouraging and exciting and as perfectly timed for the 29th as an expertly primed and timed IED leaning nonchalantly against the Poodle poubelle doggie flap.

Bring it on, as they say.

POODLEGATE

~ 38 Degrees ~

I said it the moment I saw this prancing coxcomb, without even knowing who or what he was for.

I say it still: this mincer is the flake of flakes and it's appalling to think that standards of judgement and tolerance have sunk so low that someone like Blair can be handed reins for such widespread harm and shame.

He needs stamping on and hard.

It baffles me that he's still poncing around waffling his self-serving rubbish.

PoodlePiddle ~ OMG! The Poodle must be positively puddling hisself ... up before the Beak, Friday Jan 29 as ever is.

PudenDum Dummy Doo-Wah ~ By the Fibbers of Frucinus! If anyone deserves to feel lonely in their shame, it's the Pudel.

Well and truly phuct , as we say over in Phuket, and as I daresay they also quip oop t'Mirror newsroom:

"Iraq, Liar may not appear on Tony's tombstone but will be forever linked to his name."

[By the way, if you ever need a Page 3 lovely or a really cool song tagged to a seemingly impossible link, I'm your man]

Ducking diving conniving - Geoff Wheatcroft good on what a 'strange creature' is the Poodle,

"with his exalted sense of destiny, his total lack of scruple when he thinks the ends are justified, his readiness to use fair means or foul to get his way, and in particular his quite remarkable capacity for selective amnesia.

One consequence is that he often fails to see that he is completely contradicting himself, and in the process humiliating his faithful allies."

Talk about Spanish Friar. I was right to choose it for that earlier odious 'Tony' and I'm even righter to dust it down for the Mincer Minceur.

All together now:

"This hour's the very crisis of your fate;
Your good or ill; your infamy or fame"

Lord Goldsmith: Iraq war illegal

WMD ~ 45 minutes: Adding a bit of local colour like that: asking for trouble.

Biggest and bloodiest blunder in UK foreign policy since the charge of the Light Brigade

Poodlefuck: Campbell bats back enquiry probe, finesses Blair.

Brilliant preparation of the land for when the Poodle hits the porcelain. Alastair C 100% on form, ostensibly answering the probingest questions as if in staunch defence of his former boss but in fact priming the Enquiry like a heat-seeking missile embedded with the Poodle's microchip. I love it.

Campbell's blog is rather fun, too, and likely to get even greasier with the whitewash of Blair looming.

• The heck is this? Jonathan Powell at the Iraq war inquiry - "live", aka the Grauniad's Andrew Sparrow doing 'rolling coverage' on Blair's former chief of staff 'rolling' out evidence to the Chilcot panel

The mincer's Mincer is fucked.

60 seats ~ 6-hr Grilling

Jan 18 witness: former chief of staff, Jonathan Powell

Later this week: Geoff Hoon, Jack Straw

Groundhog Day for Blair: I also love Matt Parris' wonderful piece in The Times, absolutely nailing it when he compares a 'flashlight beamed at a single episode' to that clever Bill Murray showpiece, Groundhog Day.

"The needle sticks. The same phrases repeat and repeat. Other lives move forward; new actors enter and quit the stage; but you will be left skewered, endlessly going over the disputed history of one brief period ...

Do Alastair Campbell, do the former Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, do Tony Blair and the peer Lord Hutton, whose report so breathtakingly exonerated him, know that this is their fate? ...

There wasn’t really much new in Tuesday’s exchanges ... Mr Campbell’s swaggering confidence surprised only those who forget that, apart from mateyness or intimidation, Tony Blair’s former head of communications has no other modes of operation. News of the rumoured secret letters told us little more than what Sir Christopher Meyer has long maintained: that his master had “signed in blood” for war. Mr Campbell was essentially confirming Sir Christopher’s account ...

What about the biggest recent headlines when Mr Blair told the BBC’s Fern Britton that he’d have gone to war, WMDs or not? You or I are free to speculate on how solemnly Downing Street will have taken its commitment to the unvarnished truth on WMDs, given that for the Prime Minister personally they weren’t what really mattered, but that is all it is: speculation ...

I shall watch Mr Blair as he gives evidence himself to Chilcot, and feel little expectation that our former Prime Minister will stumble where he has never stumbled before. Mr Blair’s famous defence of last resort, that “agree or disagree, you must accept that I did what I believed to be right” may disgracefully duck his duty to defend his judgment, but ducks it successfully: he escapes into a thicket where we cannot follow him: his own estimation of his own probity ..

What’s achievable is that those who led us into that grisly blunder are never allowed to move on; that they never regain the respect they enjoyed before it; that their public careers never climb back towards the eminence they once enjoyed; that, forever justifying themselves, forever repeating their denials and slipping through their frustrated accusers’ fingers, they never escape the flashlight beamed at this single episode in their lives.

On to their monuments chiselled “Iraq”; into their obituaries, one central, unforgiven fact."

Wonderful image. Well written and reasoned.

Bravo, Mr Parris. Exactly what's needed to tilt the public's compass mood towards the desired Tipping Point.

Yo Blair! We're not in Punxsutawney any more. Come Feb 2, and you shuffle out of your comfort burrow, you won't see your shadow but nor will there be anywhere back to retreat. The winter of your discontent, dear boy, will last a lot longer than a mere extra six weeks.

Anti-war calls for Blair enquiry questions:

“You say that the war was right and that it was worth it, so this is a question about your level of acceptable death and destruction.

”At what number of deaths and at what level of destruction would such a war become not-worth-it?”

Behind closed stable doors - Now it begins. I'm sure Sir John Reith has many good reasons for not to be heard en publique . In my book, citing 'personal reasons' is the oiliest last refuge and opens the Enquiry up to every dick prick and alastair to smarm their way out of hard questioning.

The right questions to ask: When The Economist speaks, I sit up. On Campbell:

"His testimony was a telling rehearsal for the imminent appearance of the star witness: his old boss, Tony Blair."

Notes to President Bush: So sensitive they were not shown in advance, even to senior Cabinet ... “quite advisory ... very frank.”

That Campbell creature surpasses even me: Janus-faced smarming over esteemed colleagues, same time maneuvring them into line to take the full force of the shit/fan interface.

Arch Manipulator ~ Simon Hoggart good on analysing the Campbell technique

For the serial question-evader, about as one-sided an encounter as you could envisage. A relaxing day knocking the Iraq inquiry for six.

Grist to the mill: Dutch Iraq war enquiry: no rapport in that report. The Netherlanders found no justification, no UN mandate.

The Alastair Reel: Exactly as the man intended, bang on cue.

Calls for the letters to now be published

Allow for some initial argy-bargy, a shuffle or two of the well-worn Campbell Two-step, and we should surface around the time when the Poodle makes his crufty appearance.

Former head of the Civil Service, Lord Turnbull:

"What on earth is this statement to Fern Brittan on the television all about? You will have to put this point to him."

Lord Turnbull again: Tony Blair failed to see Iran threat

Loadsa Money, USA: Quoth an eager Texan in re Tony Blair speaking about the atrocities committed in Iraq under his name.

"The only way you can get Tony Blair to do anything is to pay him thousands of dollars."

Speaking of which, this is good: Atop the £6million we British taxpayers already pay out in security for Poo' Blair, we're also footing an annual bill of £600,000 to support the jammy bastard in his Middle East fail.

He's got four Whitehall officials working for him full-time *and* he collects public money for office accommodation and IT.

Mind you - and it's all in the article - 'Tony' "has not spoken to a Foreign Office minister since October and has never met ministers at the Department for International Development, who provide much of the support for his position as Office of the Quartet Representative."

Oh boy, oh boy ... by the time this swindler and poltroon comes up before the Enquiry, his balls will be well and truly cooked.

IRAQ ENQUIRY DIGEST ~ Everything about Chilcot

Dates for the Poodle: The former prime minister will give a full day of evidence to the inquiry at some point in the fortnight between January 25 and February 5.

Right to know: Why we went to war ~ Michael Mansfield, QC, no less (in t'Thoonderer, no lesser still):

"This inquiry should have as its core question — how it was that a sophisticated, multifaceted parliamentary democracy failed to detect, let alone prevent, such a misconceived and costly military adventure? On this, there has been a singular lack of scrutiny and accountability."

Campbell@Enquiry - Blair's secret war letters

Freedman odd choice for Chilcot: “Critics of the war might argue Sir Lawrence was himself one of the causes of the war!”

Campbell say-so: Blair dossier sexed up to fit false claims

Anything with Plaid Cymru in the title gets into this blog, doubly dai so if there's an Elfyn Llwd leek lurking in the background.

Election mustn't obscure Iraq questions

Blair attachment to militarism ~ key characteristic of premiership.

Absence of lawyers - bad

Indictment for Iraq war crimes filed in Italy

Blair the intern

"Unbelievable case against Blair" - See? This is a perfect example of how 'tony' I can be when it suits me. That eye-grabbing headline about a silver-bullet cast-iron 'I don't believe you' case had you going, yeh? Settle down - it's nowt but smoke and mirrors.

In truth, it's no more than good old Jim Corbett filing from Okayama in a Jan 7 reply to Paul Middleton's Jan 3 letter to The Japan Times.

Phil Shiner : It's that Masked Stranger again, in the Guardian, warning that the UK can't cover up abuse forever

Quoth our shiner into the gloom:

"The bad news from Iraq gets worse: my law firm has 47 ongoing high-profile cases which include allegations of male rape, other serious sexual abuse including by females of male Muslims, every conceivable kind of coercive interrogation technique and abuse by the "secret army" of interrogators known as the Joint Forward Interrogation Team."

Chazzer Razzer: Seems that the Iraq War was so clearly a bone-headed idea that even Prince Charles broke cover to slam the Poodle, dismissing intelligence on Iraq and saying that Blair was making a "mistake", calling him "our glorious leader" (which I'm sure the 'People's Ponce' would have taken as an ego-boosting compliment)

War on Iraq, "madness" - HRH

Blair warned two days before invasion, insufficient post-war planning.

People Power: Get tough on Blair

Will Blair ever go on trial?Sir John Major - Big questions raised by Chilcott evidence.

I know John Major came across as somewhat ashen - 'cept he bonked hottie Currie - but I feel a frisson of credence in his recent statement in re Blair/Iraq.

Sir John reluctantly backed the war because he believed what Mr Blair had said as prime minister.

Now, big questions raised by the evidence given to Chilcott.

The argument that Saddam Hussein was a bad man and must be removed was inadequate.

It now seemed there were doubts before the invasion about whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Sir John in The Guardian: "Doubts about the motivation for the war had done more damage to trust in the UK political system than the MPs' expenses scandal".

Fork-tongue 'Tony' ~ Major: 'When I was Prime Minister I told the truth'

Incestuous new job: What more natural than a Poodle leeches onto sinecure boulot with a Frenchie franchise?

The Blair Luxury Life-style

BIGGEST FORTUNE: Blair's pro bono work in Africa, corporate consultancies, international peace envoy' farce: generating biggest fortune to date earned by former British PM.

Evidence and opinions mount.

Bread & Circus ~ Muchas moolah already raked in by the specious speechifying Blair. For the rest of us mob, circus time, Chalcots of fire, and a lottery.

Seats Ballot

Come Judgement Day, that Poodle's going to yap, and he gone yap good.

Hans Blix: Blair sold Iraq on WMD, but only régime-change added up. Blair deployed arguments as they suited him; weapons inspections were telling another story

Blair Slammed for zilch results: At the end of the 6 month British presidency of the EU, Blair hammered by UKIP chief Nigel Farage.

Why Blair isn't sorry - watch the way his face goes ashen as the questioning takes a rough turn, 'gaunt his whole body, his breath is green with gall; his tongue drips poison.' (John Quincy Adams sampling Ovid on John Randolph, but no less spot on context for the Poodle.)

One picture worth 1,000 words

Isn't this just the most telling spoof? Hilarious.

Summarises everything.

Doesn't it look exactly as if Blair is giving us the finger with a chortling:

"Up yours, people - and fuck you !" ~ primp preen giggle ~ "I did it George's way."

To the right:

15 February 2003, Anti-Iraq war demonstrators march down Piccadilly, central London, before attending a rally in Hyde Park.

Police put the number at 750,000

Organisers said nearer 2M

Sycophancy + 'Narcissist’s Defence' ~ foreign policy disgrace of epic proportions ~ self-belief no answer to misjudgment, no answer to death.

Sycophancy towards power: could not resist the 'glamour' he attracted in Washington.

"He was weak and, as we can see, he remains so."

Not just weak, also sloppy.

It turns my stomach to see representatives of government or big business going open-collared when the media is present.

Poodle Blair is one of the worst offenders and if I was in his winkle-pickers, soon to be grilled to a quavering wreck, I'd start dressing like an adult.

Lust for power ~ Blair Integrity ~ What integrity? Who the deuce still uses those words in the same sentence about Blair?

Little-known loophole: Blair's use of company law to keep his finances secret

More Humility

In the Firing Line : Whereas I laid into PC Smellie because he defines the bully-boy arrogance of today's Filth, it's a personal pleasure to track Blair's come-uppance.

I accept there'll be soft questioning, misleading witnesses and missing evidence but I'm reassured to read that

"This time, in contrast to previous inquiries, where it becomes essential, they are prepared to leave Blair in the firing line."

The man has no bottom, being made up almost entirely of side and smarm, which will make so interesting his all-too human performance before the Beak next year.

I wonder if in his nightmare hours it's sunk in how unfit he is to withstand his coming ordeal at the Enquiry?

He will wilt early, foppish words cutting no ice.

"It is not just disgruntled civil servants or under-resourced military chiefs hitting back, either. Even former advisers have left the inquiry ensuring that Mr Blair has more awkward questions to answer."

Yum, smack of chops, rub of hands.

Feral beasts ~ Remember Fop Top's mewling 'feral beasts' whine about the horrid UK meedja not liking him?

"They don’t approach me in an objective way.

Their first question is how to belittle what I’m doing, knock it down, write something bad about it.

It’s not right. It’s not journalism. They don’t get me ..."

Don't 'get ' you, you mincing nancy boy? What language are you waffling in now?

By God, you'd better not trot out insipid lingo like that in front of the Iraq War Inquiry.

Yo, Blair! Don't fret about no-one 'getting' you ~ Judge Dredd will dismantle your every spin and lie.

They'll 'get' you, all right.

Here's veteran Lobby correspondent David Rose on why Blair might be unpopular with journos:

"Blair's legacy is tarnished not just by what is now widely perceived as his misjudgement in going to war in Iraq, but in misleading Parliament, the media and the public about the military threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Under Blair, spinning has come so embedded in Government that journalists genuinely now have difficulty at times in knowing when they are being told the truth.”

Know the feeling.

Wars, Duplicity and Worlds Destroyed

"Looking for a crucifixion, fearing a whitewash": I try to chuck in the occasional 'balancing' piece to give the impression of 'fairness'.

Even so, this rarely detracts from my slings and arrows because my targets are such shits and mountebanks I could sum up for the defence and they'd still swing.

Guardian's Anthony Seldon: Lack of humility destroying admiration for Blair.

Cabbie! ~ While the intelligence was sufficient to convince most insiders Saddam had powerful weapons, [Blair] could and should have probed the "45 minutes" thesis more on WMDs and given primacy to his moral case for war over WMDs.

If this had failed to sway Parliament, then so be it.

RICHARD INGRAMS : A dedicated Private Eye reader from Ingrams' editorship (now The Oldie), I zero in on anything he writes.

As a "lifelong lover of personal abuse and vituperation," Ingrams "read with great delight this week's article in The Times headed "Intoxicated by power, Blair tricked us into war" by Sir Ken Macdonald QC, the former Director of Public Prosecutions.

"And it wasn't only Blair that Macdonald was targeting. The members of the Chilcot inquiry were not in his view the sort of people who were likely to want to rock the boat. 'The position of the inquiry panel is uncertain,' he wrote. 'So far its questioning has been unchallenging.'

Ingrams again - did Bush punch the Bible with Blair? Did he set him Gog Magog agog.

The fun and justice begins with hauling Mr Blair into the dock and watching the savagery.

Straw letter to Blair (Dept of Clutching At) ~ "Think of alternatives to invading Iraq"

WMD Evidence: Mr Blix and his team visited Iraq regularly and found no evidence of WMD. They reported this back to Downing Street and to the UN, and it would appear from the aftermath that this was ignored.

Monster of the Year ~ fake as his tan.

"In a world overpopulated by lying, conniving hypocrites, one man stood out this year as the worst: our former Prime Minister Tony Blair."

Heh heh, that Amanda Platell, she knows how to deliver a sucker punch.

I love it when I can quote Pixie Platters because then I can choose a pic of her resembling stunner Ashley Judd followed by a pic of La AJ elle-même.

How much did he know?: "Blair’s reputation will sink if the inquiry reveals he knew, or should have known, that Saddam did not possess weapons of mass destruction."

IF? This is looking increasingly like another poodle paintjob.

Blair to blah in public

The Chaos that led Britain to war: Ignorance, hasty plans and a one-sided relationship with the US

Commentaria

Mr Baddeley en forme ~ Poodlegate reaching Tipping Point.

"I have to ask myself why I reserve so much contempt for this man. I'm puzzled.

It's not the normal scepticism about political utterance. There's something more and I can't quite put my finger on it.

Ian McEwan in The Child in Time (1988) described public figures who move around in a moral maze by navigating the complicated channels that run between truth and lying ... 'with sure instincts while retaining a large measure of dignity.

Only occasionally, as a consequence of tactical error, was it necessary to lie significantly, or tell an important truth. Mostly it was sure-footed scampering between the two extremes.

Wasn’t the interior life much the same?' It's clever writing by McEwan to say all that, then finish (as did Shakespeare with Polonius' pompous injunctions to R and G that concludes with the eternal lines about being true to oneself and it shall follow as the night the day...").

Pondering this observation, which does seem a measure of my ordinary interior life, I wonder if my detestation of Blair is that he doesn't need to bladerun a moral tightrope like the rest of us normal humans because even privately he really can't actually distinguish truth from lying.

The strength of contempt for Blair is a projection of my worry that he is no more than a prominent exemplar of human self-deception.

I see other public figures with faces marked and hair whitened by the pain and strain of moral navigation, but this one's a Dorian".

Homeric nod - SB keeps me honest. I don't know how many times my eye has skimmed over the name of the late Robin Cook while trying to pack this Poodle post with links of relevance - but it just didn't sink in.

Of course, of course - that stalwart's resignation speech against the invasion of Iraq.

See also Best Resignations

Same goes for Clare Short

"Inquiry or govt-funded whitewash?" ~ Andy Reeves on t'ball

OMG, doesn't that look like a dream come true? Blair doing porridge behind bars?

Roll on the enquiry, and roll on such perfect (if somewhat incestuous) cues that allow me to segue into straight-man Sindbad's excellent Democracy Street where you can read more about the crusading Phil Shiner.

Blairdoyenne ~ Si vis pacem, para bellum

Bush-bullied, scared to lose matinée status - measured letter in Guardian from Mr Brian Barder (HM diplomatic service, 1965-94)

"Mr Blair clearly owes the Chilcot inquiry an explanation of his catastrophic decision to join the US in attacking Iraq.

According to the evidence already given to Chilcot, it was a condition of UK participation in the war that it must have the prior approval of the UN Security Council, which Blair manifestly failed to get."

Foreign excursions make Poodle our most expensive protectee.

There's me lighting a candle a day to the Saintèd Spiros that this swish-swash toadstool would just bugger off ~ and it turns out it's costing you 'n' me 20+ policiers at £115,000+ a week to keep the homunculus alive .

Talk about wonky values. Wake up someone ~ he's making so much stonking money spouting his spiel, why can't he frigging pay some of it back?

By the Arsehole of Erebus! Here's that strutting chrysanthemum bleating away about

"when leaders step down, they all do a certain amount of paid speaking and that is fair enough. If all I wanted to do was make speeches, let me tell you, I could make five times the number."

Well fucking make it, you sponger, and start paying for your keep.

War inquiry expanding

The Case Against

Quotes from this muskeg of blairocrity

War crime case rock solid ~ and I love the news that when News Quiz's Sandi Toksvig called AB a war crim on air, the BBC received not a single complaint. That is rich - almost as rich as the poodle himself.

BLAIR WAR CRIMES FOUNDATION ~ The Petition.

Phil Shiner - See Baddeley comment and link to the Stop the War AGM: MoD Torture Cover-up.

Shiner on The Iraq War and International Law

Bush patsy - the how and why of Iraq, doing the work American truth-seekers should be doing but aren't.

Drawn into the war by the flawed intelligence and deceptive premises of the George W. Bush administration.

Put Blair on trial: Quoth Lindsey German, convenor of Stop the War,

“If Tony Blair repeats his confession of war crimes to the Iraq inquiry, it will have no alternative but to recommend that legal proceedings be taken against him."

Iraq News and Info' - I tuned in to see why Chris Hitchens' name was attached but Shirley Williams nails it over Blair as middle east envoy. Bush massively out of touch to even think of Blair for the job, of whom there is no one less likely to make a poodle's breakfast of the post.

Philanthropist or Hustler - S Times' John Arlidge

Actually, I nicked that from the Indep's John Rentoul catch-up on Blair

The curse of Bloody Sunday: media free-for-all on live television, no legal representation, no cross-examination by expert advocates trained to expose humbug, prick egos and draw out the truth.

Blair should answer to Britain, not Britton

Day-by-day timeline - Evidence given

Who is John Chalcot? ~ and other War Questions

Not-a-Trial of 'Tony' Blair - curious little blog here that I can't quite make out but which seems to have some interest in a Chris Ames and his homing in on the Iraq Inquiry’s 1-Minute blackout.

And here he is again - my kind of nutter, this time he's ... hmm, I can't actually pin down what he's rabbiting on about but it's to do with El Poodle and has the clever heading about being "Innocent until proven 'Tony' Blair".

I love that Blair=Guilt synonymity. Talk about cutting to the chase.

The Case for Blair: Guardian political writer Michael White dishes the usual balanced stuff ... "dominant British politician of the decade" blah di blah.

It's included because MW rightly reminds us that,

"the US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, without a second UN security council resolution and without subsequent proof of the existence of weapons of mass destruction, turned into a quagmire of inept occupation"

and further spots that,

"though both Bush and Blair won re-election, time was against them. For many voters, both men had made unforgivable misjudgements, if not committed war crimes."

Blew Labour No doubt who ruled Britain

Blair the man to blame: Redcap's dad praises inquiry for exposing the truth.

"People can clearly see Tony Blair is the man to blame for sending our soldiers to Iraq ... disgusting that Tony Blair was told that the weapons of mass destruction had been dismantled 10 days before we invaded Iraq. He kept this from us. He lied to the country."

Nix Knighthood for Blair ~ on its own, a stomach-heaving notion, to be sure.

Blair Murder Justified ~ Oh poh poh! That great big huggy-bear George Galloway - and again for his official website, if only to admire his expansive signature.

Inflammatory copy, anyone? Gallo's your man.

GQ mag asks him would the suicide-bomber assassination of Blair be justified.

Quick as a flash,

“Yes, it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it – but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable. And morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq – as Blair did.”

Yee haw! That's telling it how it is.

Moore, McMenemy et co: "The British government was inept and it may have been criminally negligent ... The government's request for a media blackout was never about the five men, never about saving them. It was always about saving Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from any further embarrassments."

Low Dishonest Decade:"As the only foreign leader of any note to have signed up for the overthrow of Saddam, as a partner of the U.S. in the ending of Slobodan Milosevic's wars in the Balkans, as the prime minister who had finally neutered the IRA and seen the Good Friday Agreement to completion, he had the authority to speak out in private or in public against the Bush administration's blunders. He did not."

Amanuensis: Anyone notice recently how well I've been Boswelling My Lord Baddeley of Kora-sur-Brum?

Actually, I like it. I've always been a Iago-style hail-fellow dagger-in-the-ribs type chap, advancement in the fold of a kerchief, what?

The way it worked here was Sinbad picked up some homework via Katherine Gun, skived it off to me and hey bingo, Bob's yer Poodle.

CHILCOT INQUIRY
~ THE ESTABLISHMENT GOES TO WORK ~

D'ye see where we're going with this? I've looked up each URL.

Sir John Chilcot - reputations on line

Mary Dejevsky ... surgeon's finesse.

In reality, almost nothing

This Labour government

Lack of probing questions

His role in the Butler inquiry

Easily argued

British left with the role

Former NS Ed John Kampfner

Blair speech: “Many of our problems"

Richard Ingrams notes

“I have sat in this place for 23 years"

The evidence needed to undermine

Iraqi “threat” a fantasy

"Colin Powell an intelligent, thoughtful man"

True, vanishingly rare, and incomplete

In British public life

I've not tested all those links above because the Lagavulin du crépuscule calls and that thar linking above is a purty darn'd good effort as it is.

After all that, I feel like that bosomy stenographer in Mad Men which is to say that I don't at all feel like the Christina Hendricks character but I do enjoy the excuse to plonk in a few pics.

Talk his way out of this one.

Oily 'Tony', Oily deal

"Many bad men around the world who run countries and we don't topple them" - Sir John Major

Chaos in Britain’s planning for the war

2nd half Jan/early Feb: Evidence to war enquiry. Blair re-surface set to haunt Lab.

The dog that barked in the night-time

Campbell to Enquiry - Jan 12 sees appearance of the highest profile witness, Blair's director of communications and closest aide when as Britain went into the Iraq war.

Campbell Grill - will Chilcot do its job?

"If ever a person whose job it is to put out his own version of events needed to be pinned down by documents and facts, that person is Alastair Campbell.

If Chilcot's inquiry is going to do a better job than Lord Hutton's, it will have to up its game pretty quickly."

Warmongering Protesters - 28 Jan

PATTERN ~ I'm sensitive to patterns and I'm sensing one here.

A good start, a pic of none other than Sir John Chilcot, GCB, PC.

A bit like that moment in Jaws when the monster itself rears from the brine.

I'm hoping we won't be needing a bigger chair.

Jumbled Quotes:

A mandarin with a safe pair of hands ... though some doubt his forensic skill ... International lawyer Philippe Sands is reported as saying, "Having some familiarity with Sir John's questioning ... it is not immediately apparent that he will have the backbone to take on former government ministers."

Sands also commented specifically on Sir John’s questioning of attorney-general Peter Goldsmith during the Butler inquiry:

He [Lord Goldsmith] gave evidence on 5 May 2004. The uncorrected transcript shows some members of the inquiry pressing him [Goldsmith] hard. By contrast, Sir John's spoonfed questions give every impression of being designed to elicit a response from the attorney general that would demonstrate the reasonableness of his actions and those of the government.”

What's happening is what my boss at Microsoft applied to launches of apps or software ... 'Rolling Thunder'. Not anything that you or I can control.

South Tyneside and t'Shields Gazette

Haaretz

Berkely Daily Planet ?? Whazzat about, ffs?

Are the people speaking?

London Hearing: Third of the 50-60 seats set aside for relatives.

Quotes: "I don't know what they will get out of Blair – it depends whether they ask the awkward questions. There's no way he can justify the war. It's already been established that there were no weapons."

"My understanding is that only the next of kin can attend, which would be Paul's wife. It makes me feel like nothing – we're like the forgotten ones.

I have no faith in the inquiry. Gordon Brown won't be giving evidence until after the general election, that's just a ploy by Labour to save votes.

The whole thing is a load of lies."

Hear that uncomfortable ring of 'normal' folk being given a bullhorn? Crikey ouch yaroo - Not Blair's patch one bit.

Haaretz - doh! It's Iraq, stoopid. Where *was* my curriculum vitae wandering?

Golden Poodle Award ~
“Tony Blair consistently denied to Parliament and the public that the U.K. government was preparing for war in Iraq, yet these documents show that planning began back as far as 2002.”

Pay the Piper, not the Poodle: Don't care a Euro-fig that Sir John's 'exact remuneration will only be known once he delivers his report.' Just so long as the Poodle doesn't leave the sandbox peddling the same shit he came in with.

Secret Straw Letter: Further proof (if the Enquiry needed it) that the British were taken into the Iraq war on the wings of Poodle Pusillanimity. Blair lacked even the scrannel of a scrotum to stand up to Dubya and it's becoming increasingly clear with each day's leaks or testimony that courage and decision played no part in Downing Street's belligerent equation.

I must say, Jack Straw's epistolary bent has proved a fund of information:

The case for military action in Iraq was of dubious legality and would be no guarantee of a better future for Iraq even if Saddam Hussein were removed.

"The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few ... there is at present no majority inside the PLP [parliamentary Labour party] for any military action against Iraq.”

The assessment I like, that 'The release of Straw’s letter will pile further pressure on Blair ahead of the former prime minister giving evidence to the inquiry sometime between January 25 and February 5."

Mark your calendars, boys and girls. Blair posturing on the rack will be one of the less appetising sights of the year.

Scary Photo ~ I like to keep in the mood and you lot on yer toes. Isn't that a wonderful, almost Murdochian Prince of Darkness snap? Deliberate, of course, to ready us for the entrance of the Blear.

- nik cohen in guardian, Opponents of the Iraq war deluded - Nik Cohen in the Guardian reminding us how likely it is that Chilcott will find the allied intervention was illegal.

Lyne Betrayed: Just one of many many revelations and admissions oozing out of the woodwork, this one concerning Sir Roderic Lyne's starring role.

"He is one of many people in the Foreign Office who were betrayed by a Government that told lie after lie over Iraq."

Background: At the time the dossier was released, Sir Roderic Lyne was British Ambassador to Moscow – and was used by Mr Blair and Mr Campbell to woo Russian leader Vladimir Putin and ‘sell’ the Iraq War to the Russians.

To war on assumption of WMD:

No concrete evidence Saddam had destroyed his 'stockpiles' of chemical weapons

2003 ~ Govtd "confident" he still had them

"When our forces went in, we were absolutely amazed to discover there weren't any weapons of mass destruction"

What's depressing is that I don't actually have to elaborate on the headlines with which I kick off each entry.

I can't improve on the content of the links I choose.

What I can do is try to add a sliver of a brick to the wall that'll close Blair off from further mincing, further flakey time-wasting of regular folks who don't deal in such feckless fucking around.

Poodle to campaign for Labour: Brown is not that stoopid, all right he is. But what machiavellian scheme is he working that he even lets the Poodle *near* the campaign - unless he thinks that the presence of Blair will attract more heat and hatred even than his being around and thus cast him in a better light.

Blair Baiting petition ~ No, it's not encourage people to bait, it's against being so horrid to the Poodle. Actually, the responses give such a good idea of what the people are like who signed, rather touching. This chap who's running this ... I bet the Poodle blushes at this sort of support - but, the man who coined the Peoples Princess term can't complain when it turns round and bites him on the ankle.