Three observations.
1. Yesterday’s report suggesting some failings in the government’s record on inequality attracted widespread broadcast and print media coverage. Today, so far as I can tell from a quick skim around the place, only The Guardian does much with a report showing a fifty per cent rise since the mid-90s in the likelihood of England’s poorest teenagers going to university .
The report, by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, shows that participation rates have soared in the past five years in particular, with disadvantaged 18 and 19 year olds now 30% more likely to enrol at universities than they were in the mid-2000s.
Professor Danny Dorling of the University of Sheffield describes it as probably the greatest social achievement of the Labour government since 1997, and says it was achieved not at the expense of upper and middle class children, but because of changes to the whole education system and the massive increase in funding for state secondary schools. A government policy success in other words. Hence the news blackout.
2. Amid the ongoing debate about special advisers, whether in the recent ‘Better Government Initiative’, or in some of the questioning at the Iraq Inquiry, I would like to remind people of Jonathan Powell’s role in the Northern Ireland peace process. Both TB and Bertie Ahern are on record as saying that Jonathan’s role was crucial. It was in my view precisely because he was a special adviser – known to be close to TB and also able to operate politically – that sometimes he was able to make things happen in a way that permanent civil servants could not.
I hope the current difficulties over policing are resolved. I hope too that the Tories are not messing around, as some reports of recent meetings with Unionists have suggested. It would not surprise me however. During the most difficult parts of the peace process, they talked the talk on bipartisanship, but the itch to pull away was never far beneath the surface, whether because of their closeness to the Unionists, or more likely the desire to make life more difficult for TB.
3. Similar duplicity from some senior Tories, notably William Hague, on Iraq. In the build up to the war, the Tory line was that we were not doing enough about Saddam, and we were not doing it quickly enough given the obvious threat he posed. That was even before their leaders were given access to the same intelligence that ministers saw. On that basis, and because of the record and the arguments that were played out time and again in public, they supported the war. Now the wind is moving in a different direction, and virtually all of the media have joined the anti-herd, some senior Tories move with it. Leadership it ain’t. And I rather agree with the point Philip Stephens made in the FT the other day, that it seems odd, given the Tory votes were important on this issue, that they are never asked searching questions about their positions then and now.
All of which brings me to TB’s appearance at the inquiry. If I was surprised at the scale of coverage of my own appearance, frankly nothing would surprise me tomorrow. I heard Radio Five Live’s trailers for what will doubtless be all-day coverage. It sounded like they used the people normally employed in hyping Cup Finals or other major sporting events.
Even more than with the Hutton Inquiry, the media have tended to cover those parts of the testimony that have fitted their own pre-judged agenda. They constantly say they want the truth. The truth is they want those parts of the story that fit their analysis.
As I said when giving evidence, there is another view, even if it gets very little airtime. Many Iraqis, who know what life under Saddam was like, hold it. So do more British people that the one-sided media approach would suggest. I see that the indefatigable Stan Rosenthal has taken out an ad in The New Statesman saying that ‘an open inquiry is one thing. Reporting it in a highly selective, slanted and misleading way to vilify our former Prime Minister is quite another.’
It won’t change the reporting I suspect. But it is no bad thing to remind people that is the kind of reporting we are getting.
John Rentoul, a rare voice in the media who stands against the herd on Iraq, has also spotted the ad, and pointed out that just because the Blair-haters are angrier than everyone else doesn’t make them right.
Agreed on the media looking for a story with the inquiry. There always seems to be a collective “Oh..” at the end of each day, as if the smoking gun everyone was hoping would be found didn’t happen and they were almost disappointed and only the points seen as being negative are highlighted. Maybe they need to just accept that actually, there isn’t a smoking gun and war is sadly never black and white.
I’m glad Labour has done so much regarding education, but I think the report on inequality does point to troubling evidence.
Living in London in the 1990’s, I was baffled at how young Brits from poorer backgrounds couldn’t even conceive of making a better life for themselves. In the 1990’s!
(Aside: Speaking of the disadvantaged, I think the Guardian is right today to criticise Labour for over emphasising meritocracy. This HAS translated into less empathy for the poor. Americans are the fiercest believers in meritocracy and are easily the harshest Western country toward the poor)
There is a kind of pincer movement now – right wing media hates Blair because he won election after election and even though they all supported the war because of US involvement now they pretend somehow the arguments have changed. Left wing media hate him because he was not as left wing as they think he should have been, which is why he won in the first place, which takes us back to right wing hatred, and round and round it goes. The right have to keep at it because only if New Labour is buried can the Tories have a chance of getting back in. And Old Labour was always happier with the protest of opposition than the difficulties of government. Yet as you say on uni access, this government has made a lot of progress that is put at risk if Labour lose
I find it odd that you seem to assume that members of the public cannot make up there own mind with regard to the evidence presented at the Chilcott inquiry. You’re assertion that we should ignore the deception which took place (the evidence from the inquiry is pretty clear that the intelligence (such as it was) was spun to suit a pre-agreed agenda and anyone who got in the way of this was either sidelined (re DIS) or leant on (re Attorney General)) because Iraq is (on your premise) better off today than it was under Saddam is disengenous to say the least. You could make a case for it if the argument put to Parliament and the people at the time was that we were going in because we are in the business of regime change (and that once we had taken out Hussein we would move on to North Korea, Zimbabwe, China etc etc), but that was not the argument that was made at the time.
Indeed many people (including many Iraqi’s) would argue that the suffering caused (read the figures regarding the displaced, the murdered, the dead soldiers) as a result of your subterfuge was not worth the cost and that in many respects, the region is far more unstable (with Iran’s malign influence in affairs greatly increased) than before the invasion. Some would say that there are quite a few shadowy players in the current Iraqi government who have done a number of reprehensible things behind the scenes towards their own people and continue to do so.
That aside, what has become clear from the inquiry itself is the lack of good faith exercised by those in power (and their attendant spin doctors). That you went to the enquiry and repeated the mantra ‘I stand by and defend every word of the dossier’ (what the one which was nicked off the internet and widely discredited at the time…) whilst refusing to correct or to attempt to answer any of the obvious inconsistencies between what you said and what the documentary evidence shows reflects poorly on you. It’s a two year old’s defence – if I shout loudly enough and repeat the same argument then I am right and you are wrong and everyone will believe me in the end; arguably Ken MacDonald’s critique of Blair’s defence as being that of a narcissist’s applies to you. (Chris Ames amongst others picks holes in your statements quite clearly – perahaps you should wake up, smell the coffee and go and read a few of his articles).
Even your attempt to clarify a point raised in the Chilcott transcript was an exercise in obfuscation. And your response to the Daily Mail’s headline reports regarding your appearance (the one where they called you a liar), where you engage in a bizarre personal critique of one of its editors, was most strange – why not actually try to address the facts weighing so heavily against your arguments???? (For the record I cannot abide the DM, but I do not believe that they have done as much damage to the fabric of this country and people’s faith in the institutions of state, the role of parliament and government itself, as you and Blair have done.)
I’ll leave you with this:
“I know scepticism is fine, but are we really so cynical that we think any prime minister is going to make prior decisions to send British forces into conflict and wouldn’t rather avoid doing that.”
Many of us weren’t cynical at the time, because like John Major, we believed there was more to this than what we were being told at the time; I expressly remember Blair’s 45 WMD claim to Parliament and the emphasis put on this as being of great concern to all. In fact, Blair was playing the barrister – manipulating ‘facts’ to suit his argument whilst deliberately hiding or removing reference to any of the key caveats.
(You, on the other hand, being in the loop and all, were cynical enough to know that we were going to go to war a year before we did but for the sake of political expediency we were going to engage in a game of political charades first and for that history will damn you). My cynicism and disillusion with the political process is (like many others) not born from the behaviour of today’s media but by the actions of people like you for whom the medium and formof the message is more important than the substance.
With what will undoubtedly be blanket media coverage I think much of the British public will actually be quite pleased to see him back on our screens.
Re no. 3, what baffles me in the debate about whether or not there were WMD is that a book published in 2006 by General Georges Sada, the former no. 2 in the Iraq air force and one of Sadam’s most senior military advisers, seems to be completely ignored. The book, ‘Saddam’s Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied and Survived Saddam Hussein’, is still available on Amazon; in fact the General’s account is succinctly summarised by one of the Amazon ‘reviewers’ as follows:
Quote: “Georges Sada, an outsider to Saddam’s Baath centred regime, became a top pilot and then a trainer in the Iraqi air force on merit alone. He then became a General – no mean feat for a non-Arab and a Christian in Saddam’s Iraq, and one who insisted that Saddam be told truths which he did not wish to hear. More recently Sada has been awarded a prize for Peace by the Coventry Cathedral based Centre for International Reconciliation.
He states unequivocally that Saddam had chemical weapons in Iraq as late as summer 2002. That those weapons were removed to Syria by 56 Boeing 747 flights and by lorry convoys during that summer, when it became clear that Saddam could no longer stall the visit of UN weapons inspectors to his facilities.
Why is he so sure of this? Because he knows the pilots who flew the planes to Syria under the guise of sending aid to Syria after the bursting of the Zeyzoun dam in June 2002.
Is he telling the truth? Well you will have to make up your mind. It seems to me that this explanation throws light on the universal belief amongst the world’s security services that Saddam did have WMDs stockpiled in Iraq prior to the Second Gulf War. It also explains why those stockpiles have not been found (although the scientists and the raw materials have.)” End of Quote.
I gather General Sada, although probably now in his late 60s at least, is still very much active in advising the security and defence departments of the current Iraqi government. He also seems to have done quite a few interviews, mainly in the US (he speaks very good english), clips of which can be seen on Youtube (just do a search on ‘General Georges Sada’).
But as the Amazon ‘reviewer’ asks, “Is he telling the truth?” I can’t think why it should be a made up story. My impression is that General Sada is a man of integrity, unlike most of Sadam’s other Generals. At the least, one might have expected a serious western investigative journalist to check out the story, given its importance, but I assume none has. A great pity. Given General Sada’s apparent readiness to do interviews, it would be good if Chilcot asked him to appear before the committee!
The Tories’ relationship with Unionist MPs in the run up to May 1997 was diarised by Gyles Brandreth in his memoirs:
P484 – Thursday 27th February (1997) talking about dropping a proposed NI airport duty:
KC:…”(Extracted)…Let’s face it. It’s simply a bribe for votes. Okay, £7 million for the Reverend Martin Smyth[‘s vote – my edit] is cheap at the price, and, if it comes to it, I suppose we’ll have to do it, but let’s not rush into it. It’s just a bribe.”
Let’s not be naive about this – it might cost taxpayers very heavily indeed if Cameron has to rely on NI votes to come up with a Tory majority after the election.
Elvis is alive and well and talking sense.
Had to dig pretty deep into the Guardian web site to find anything about the improvement in university entrant rates from poorer families. It was mentioned on Radio Four’s Today but the reporter concentrated on how low the number still is in comparison to wealthy families and on concerns that the trend may reverse in the future. No mention that it wouldn’t have happened but for Labour.
Their motto appears to be “every silver lining has a cloud”.
And nothing ever seems to be said about the record number of applicants for university places in spite of fees and loans that, a few years ago, were claimed would put everyone off applying.
The Great British media, don’t we just love them? (Or is it “it”, never sure if “media” should be treated as singular or plural in this sort of context. And to a pedant such as me, that’s a worry!)
Dossier foreword by TB
…..What I believe the JIC reports to me have established beyond doubt is that
Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, that he
continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and that he has been able to extend the range of his ballistic missile programme . I also believe that, as stated in the document, Saddam will now do his utmost to try to conceal his weapons from UN inspectors.
The judgement “has continued to produce chemical and biological agents,” is too strong with respect to CW. “has probably” would be as far as I would go. And “continued to produce BW agents” . This is quite strong, considering what the int actually says.
…And the document discloses that his military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them.
The judgement “has military plans for the use of chemical ,and biological weapons, some of which could be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them”. Is also rather strong since it is based on a single source. “Could say intelligence suggests ., .”
As I said when I read John Rentoul’s blog,
WHO SAYS THEY’RE ANGRIER?
We who take the side of Iraqi civil society against Baathism and jihadism, who think UN resolutions ought to mean something, who support Tony Blair’s decision to remove the greatest tyrant of the region,
we TOO can feel anger towards those who offer support to or make apologies for fascism, who intentionally mislead the British public through their slander-rags, who burn in effigy elected western politicians while campaiging for the protection of genuine war criminals.
We can be just as angry. But we have the facts on our side, and don’t form angry mobs in the street (nor put bounties on former PM’s heads).
AC. Just because you continue to repeat your assertions, it does not make them any more true.
You and TB can run as far and as fast as you like, but you cannot hide.
On the subject of the Tories messing around, some of us remember seeing the Tory health spokesman way back when Dr Andrew Wakefield’s MMR pseudoscience was first being touted – promising that a future Conservative government would fund patient choice by allowing parents to opt out of MMR and into single shot vaccines instead.
This provided Dr Wakefield with political cover. The Tories added credence to his wretched conclusions.
Yet another example of Tory opportunism – meddling about for the sake of it – and how many children caught measles, mumps or rubella as a result?
Is this Saddam Hussein the one who;
Invaded Iran.
Used chemical weapons on Iran
Used chemical weapons on the Kurds
Drained the marshes around Basra to cripple the Shias
Invaded Kuwait.
Invaded Saudi Arabia (via Kuwait)
Fired Scud missiles at the Israelis.
Murdered many thousands of Iraqis and dumped them in mass graves
Or were there two of them?
I am hoping that Gordon will get a sell out appearance at the inquiry and will display the same combination of guts principles and statesmanship as TB will. Would be a v good lift off for the election in my view.
Have contributed to Rosenthal’s ad and urge everybody else to do the same.
I just want to comment on the Conservaties and Northern Ireland. I grew up there and took a great interest in politics while I lived there.
The first thing from a Westminster perspective is to wonder why the Conservative party wants a pact/deal of some sort with the Ulster Unionist Party and/or the Democratic Unionist Party? The answer can only be that the Conservative party is planning for a hung parliament. We know that when a hung parliament happens smaller parties become important, we think at first of the Lib Dems, but of course the same is true of Northern Irish parties.
I don’t think the media has spotted this “planning for a hung parliament” by the Conservatives which is what we can read from the meetings with Northern Irish Unionists.
There is a second aspect to this which is more difficult for those who are used to politics from an English/Scottish/Welsh perspective.
The Conservative party does actually organise and contest elections in Northern Ireland. This is a recentish development and has come as a result of actions by Conservatives in Northern Ireland itself, not from Conservative Party central office. I believe that there were some candidates in preparation for the general election, in fact two of them were from the Catholic community.
Cameron’s activities with the Unionist parties have in fact meant that he has just s**t on his own people in Northern Ireland in a way that displays what I think is typical crass selfishness on his behalf. Norther Irish Conservatives don’t, of course, what to have their party dealing with the Unionist parties at all.
Finally, it is a lifelong wish of mine that the Labour party should organise and contest elections in Northern Ireland. Doing deals with the local parties is imho reprehensible. If you want the advantage of seats in Northern Ireland then as a party you must do the only democratic thing and stand for election there as you would in any other part of the UK.
‘….and will display the same combination of guts principles and statesmanship as TB will’
The only similarity between Brown and Blair is that both are prepared to lie to the electorate when it suits them, principles ?, don’t make me laugh.
The world may well be a better place without Saddam. But that was just not the case put to the British people. No matter how much people squirm, spin or wriggle it was ALL about WMD. There can be no serious doubt that the evidence on WMD was spun and massaged.
By all means, argue that the ends justified the means. Hey, you might even be right on that. But please stop trying to pretend that the public weren’t misled, and deliberately misled, about the evidence for Saddam Hussein’s WMD programme.