There was some measure of agreement about yesterday’s intervention in the Brexit debate by The Blessed Tone: much of what the former Prime Minister had to say about where the UK may be heading was declared to be uncontroversial, but he may not have been the best person to have said it, given the baggage he carries from the past - exemplified by the recent furore following the release of the Chilcot report.
An absolute Muppet. And Emo from Sesame Street
But while Blair may not have been the right man to speak out against the rush to cut ties with the EU, London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was equally not the right man to reply. But as so often, Bozza was bigged up by his adoring friends in the press, who took his words as if etched on stone tablets and hand-delivered from Mount Sinai. This was not a good move on their part.
The inadvisable presence of Bozza as head of the Brexiteers’ push-back was summed up, perhaps inadvertently, by the Express’ swaggering headline: “‘I’m still clearing up your Iraq mess!’ Boris Johnson blasts Blair for anti-Brexit rant”. Whose Iraq mess would that be? Bozza has now said that the rush to war in Iraq was the result of a false premise. But that this was the case was repeatedly told at the time - and it had no effect on most MPs.
And one of those MPs who were repeatedly told that we were being dragged into the US Neocons’ ill-advised adventure on a false premise - but who enthusiastically voted for war all down the line - was, you guessed it, Bozza. He was on his way to becoming a mere back bencher, as he would be sacked from his previous shadow cabinet role after he lied to then Tory leader Michael Howard about his affair with Petronella Wyatt.
Not only was Bozza all in favour of the war he now condemns, he was also on the same side as Blair when it came to the EU, writing in the Telegraph as recently as May 2013, under the heading “Quitting the EU won’t solve our problems” that “If we left the EU … we would have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by ‘Brussels’, but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and under-investment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure”.
But now Bozza has once again departed from the real world in favour of a strategy which satisfies his principal priority - More And Bigger Displays Of Adulation For Himself Personally Now. So now he’s blustering “Everywhere I go I meet people who think Brexit will be a spectacular success, exactly as the Prime Minister has said, and who are queuing up to help us”. Except they aren’t, and he’s once again resorting to lying.
Like he lied to not only Michael Howard, but his constituents in Henley when he pretended he wasn’t going to run for the London Mayoralty. Like he lied to Londoners about the capital’s horrendously bad air quality - something else he left for Sadiq Khan to sort out. Like he lied to Londoners about the mythical “no-strike deal” for the Tube, and all those equally mythical driverless trains that aren’t going to happen. Like he lied to the voter of Crystal Palace about Tramlink. Like he lied about so much else.
Tony Blair might not be the best person to lead those questioning the headlong rush to leave the EU. But Boris Johnson is certainly not the best person to defend that move - or his own selfish, lying, duplicitous role in it. Go and lie to someone else for once, Bozza.
4 comments:
Iraq wasn't an "...ill-advised adventure..."
It was a deliberate act of illegal war that cost the lives of millions of innocent civilians then and in the tragic civil wars it triggered. It was mass murder on a scale Nazis and Fascists of the last century would have admired.
There was fuck all "ill advised" about it. It was war criminality of the very worst type, created by two desensitised political maniacs - Bush and Blair - hiding behind a curtain of lying hypocrisy and cowardice. Both of them and their supporters should be arraigned in front of the International Court. They won't of course because the US doesn't recognise it and Blair won't be pursued by his far right chums.
Johnson is indeed be a two faced lying tory gumbo. But he's got some catching up to do on Blair. That's a very long way to fall, even for him.
Blair?......A disgusting gobshite believed by nobody and hated by everybody.
Tim, I totally agree with you about Boris, but you do skim over St Tony's motives. a) ...it is widely rumoured that his ambition is to be president of all Europe (yes, #FakeNews and all that), but even more b) that he is speaking out not just in favour of staying in Europe, but with all guns blazing in trying to take down his own freaking party. That latter, for me at any rate, as a LP member, is the cause of the nasty taste in my mouth, never mind all the hypocrisy by so many over Iraq.
You know what. I'm not right now fighting an Iraq aftermath. Neither am I bothered about who wants to be EU number 1. Or their squillions. Sure, Blair has baggage - but he does not get ignored.
Right now I want this whole ruinous Brexit nonsense stopped for good. They've had their fun - now they should shut up and let some serious rebuilding get under way. God knows we need it.
So it's grateful for small mercies even if they be called Clarke or Blair. Perhaps a few more who command media attention will now join in. And some space-wasting MPs might start to regret their abysmal performance, grow some balls and bite back. Sure they'll get some heavy flak. Look on it as an honour.
Sort of "If I get Dacre that angry, I'm doing something right. Now for Murdoch."
The future of the country is at stake - not the ephemeral notion of honouring the misguided votes of a mere 25% of the population. Since when did our politicians ever give abject obeisance to "the will of the people" anyway. Not yet in my lifetime. And not whilst 3-line whips are the order of the day.
As a Remain voter, I'd point out that one of the main reasons we lost was that we were "led" by tossers like Shameron, Gidiot and bLiar. What possible good could it do for him to speak?
Yes, there were racist and xenophobic leave voters, who hate "all these foreigners" so much they'd make their own lives worse in order to spite the people they hate. But plenty of other Leave voters were perfectly decent people who looked at the rancid "leadership" of the campaign, its scaremongering and negativity, and voted against them. New Labour and the Cameroons happen to have been right about this one issue, but can you blame anyone who angrily refused to listen after the illegal invasion of Iraq, the bedroom tax etc?
They were wrong and will lose out as a consequence, but I find it difficult to blame them, instead I invite them to consider that Paul Nuttall and his Tory fellow travellers are frauds. And there's a lot of work to be done mitigating the harm done by Brexshitters. But there is no role at all for that insult of a man to play and it's about time he was told by all decent people to go forth and multiply.
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