Doesn't this sink Blair, based on his own words?

[Brotherjohn]

Read http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7163364%255E1702,00.html and other stories from yesterday's testimony to the Hutton Inquiry.

The testimony of British intelligence officials Brian Jones and the mysterious "Mr. A" seem to give lie to the official 10 Downing St. line that they did not exaggerate the evidence in the Iraq WMD dossier and in the run-up to war. If one is to believe these two intelligence officials, they in fact DID do just that, and Blair should resign based on his own words of just last week. It also reveals those words to be further lies.

Last week, Blair said (to the Inquiry) that he would have had to resign if it were true that Downing St. "sexed up" the September dossier to reinforce the case for war on Saddam Hussein.

We're waiting. I don't think he'll actually volunteer. But I think the British may not let him slide at this point. Remember, unlike here, the British government and media DO seem intent on getting to the bottom of this.

[HereSince1628]

1. They also have that troublesome vote of confidence thing

which is way easier to implement than an impeachment is here in the US.

[T_i_B]

3. Not if Blair has a landslide majority it isn't.

Blair has a majority of about 180 seats. Most of these are snivelling sycophants who would vote for the slaughter of the first born if Blair told them to. Turkey's don't vote for Christmas and Labour MP's don't vote against what is supposed to be their own government like that.

Perhaps the Labour party conference will be a more appropriate setting for toppling Blair, but again it's not like the grassroots have any power whatsoever in "new" labour. It's all Thou shalt obey Tony or else in the Labour party these days.

All in all not very good at all for the people of Britain as Blair has shown that he is unfit to run Britain. Britain deserves better than a serial liar who refuses to stand up for his own people.

[Spentastic]

2. Optimism is good

But I'm here in the U.K and Blair is in little or no danger as far as I can see. The British in their idiocy are largely won over by the "Saddam was a very bad man" line. Blair is charismatic and I believe even if he said he lied for the good of the country a fair few people would say "good enough for me"

Blair will walk away from this intact. There seems to be this myth on DU that the British electorate are somehow sophisticated. For the most part they's rather read celebrity gossip than wonde why our troops are getting killed.

[KoKo]

4. What happened to the 100 Thousand who marched agains this War in Britain?

Have they all just disappeared. There were bigger marches in Britain than here in the US as far as numbers go.

How could those people suddenly turn into "Occupation" supporters who now love Blair....especially with all the news about Kelly's death and PM's involvement in exposing him?

Doesn't make sense..........

American Anger has turned to Dean and Kucinich. Where did it go in Britain?

[Spentastic]

5. It was 2 million

I was one of them.

However 2 million is not the 35 million people here seem to wish it was. I despise Blair and will continue to do him down as often as I can. He's a third way liar and a fraud.

Us in Britain have to be careful not to hand the country to the right as the democrats did (allowed to happen) in the U.S. Blair effectively purged the Labour party of viable alternates. We're now where we are. It's not a very nice picture.

[T_i_B]

6. I disagree

The British in their idiocy are largely won over by the "Saddam was a very bad man" line. Blair is charismatic and I believe even if he said he lied for the good of the country a fair few people would say "good enough for me"

I disagree with this assessment of the UK population. Even though I am based in a staunchly tory part of the country most people I come across think that Blair is a liar, that he has been dishonest regarding Iraq and many are either prepared to accept that the war was a mistake or too embarrassed to admit that they supported it in the first place. People are seeing the Hutton enquiry in the news and they are not getting a favourable impression of "new" labour from that.

Of course the people who tended to support the war round here tend to have other issues such as Euro-Bashing, immigrant bashing etc but ther ya go. It's not like they elect "new" labour MP's in the more hawkish constituencies anyway.

I think that people are disillusioned with "new" labour, but I also think that people are disillusioned with politics in general. There appears to be little alternative to "new" labour and the politicians are increasingly out of touch. the challenge now is to build an alternative to "new" labour. That cannot be the tories as they are more or less the same. I'm leaning towards the Liberal Democrats at present but they suffer from a bit of a catch 22 situation. Not enough people vote for them because not enough people vote for them if you catch my drift.

[Spentastic]

7. Ooooh you're soo big!

on edit my title makes no sense now. But TB's post was three screens wide! So it's funny. So laugh damn you!

Sorry mate, your post I mean. Jesus not your post your written post. What am I saying?

Perhaps I'm just beyond cynical now. Round these parts all I here is well "they are better off without Saddam" even though I'm pretty sure under Saddam people were not blowing up Mosques etc.

New Labour really are a shower of shite. They wouldn't know truth if you tied it to a brick and threw it at them.

[T_i_B]

9. 3 screens wide?

Chuffin' heck! It all looked very normal size to me!

After the recent terrorist attacks even the B-B-B-B-But Saddam was an evil dictator wasn't he? excuse is in less evidence these days.

My main gripe is the other issues the chickenhawks tand to blather on about (and most of them do want to talk about other subjects) I get quite sick of hearing incessant immigrant bashing from people who would not know an immigrant, illegal or otherwise if they bit them on the arse. I'm also sick of seeing Blair capitulate to these fools.

[emad]

8. He's pretty good at bluff and counter bluff

but he knows he has a problem: George Bush. Think what you like about the UK electorate's apparent lack of sophistication, the one thing they mostly agree on is that they hate Bush. When Labour got elected, the Blair/Clinton double act seemed a natural. Clinton kept out of Iraq because he knew he couldn't get a UN sanction for regime change and had no personal axe to grind there, having defeated Bush 1 after his liberation of Kuwait. The double act seemed politically plausible.

When Al Gore lost the 2000 election in the Supreme Court, UK natural skepticism of Bush was evident. He was Poppy's puppet, and a prick: borrowing the Epstein bust of Churchill from the Brits to put in his office merely said: I'm desperate to line up with your great hero. The photocall at Camp David with George and Tony looked camp, to say the least. Overuse of Churchillian-speak ("we shall prevail" etc) didn't add gravitas, it merely made people choke. Then the state of the union address with Tony and Cherie in the wings made the PM look as if he'd just had an attack of chronic haemmorhoids.

Now he looks like he's been caught out in a massive lie: he promised us WMDs and imminent carnage if Saddam wasn't taken out, and all that happened is that an MOD stooge slit his wrist "in the bushes" after being put on the line about the government's war publicity dossier.

Best bet to boot him out of office: go ahead with the planned official state visit of Bush 2 next month: give him the full red carpet treatment, issue commemorative stamps, private photo call with the Queen, Laura visits Diana-inspired childrens' refugee centre, stroll in the garden of Lambeth Palace with the Archbishop of Canterbury, dinner at The Ivy with Tone and Cherie, plant a sequoia at the Diana memorial fountain, football kickabout photosession with David Beckham and Michael Owen, etc etc etc. Maybe Carole Caplin can fix a makeover for Laura at Harrods beauty salon and arrange some discount shopping at M&S for undies..........

[gratuitous]

10. You missed Blairian Logic 101

If the intelligence was "sexed up" or "overegged," then Tony would have resigned. Since Tony didn't resign, the intelligence reports must be valid. Simple. And he hopes you are, too.

But his position is secure. My feeble understanding of the British system makes the analog to the U.S. system would be if George W. Bush was to be put in peril, his panel of judges would be Crash Cart, Crisco Johnny and Pickles. Not very likely he'd be turned out, and Tony is likewise secure as Prime Minister. At least until the next election.

[T_i_B]

11. "Simple. And he hopes you are, too"

All too often that really does seem to be the case. On the subject of Iraq the assumption was the the British people would happily endorse any old war that was put in front of them after the UK population's hawkishness on Afghanistan and inparticular Kosovo.

However, many of us still need a good reason to support a war and Blair failed to provide that. Even the WMD case has fallen to pieces now. If there had been a good reason for war then there would not have been 2 million of us on the march in February.

Anyway, here is some more dirt.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/kelly/story/0,13747,1035559,00.html

Geoff Hoon's special adviser confirmed David Kelly's name to the press despite thinking that the Ministry of Defence scientist had not been informed of the "confirmation strategy", the Hutton inquiry discovered today.

Richard Taylor affirmed Dr Kelly's name to the Financial Times on Wednesday 9 July after a morning meeting - attended by the defence secretary, his permanent private secretary and the MoD head of press - at which it was agreed that a correct guess from a journalist would be confirmed. But under cross-examination Mr Taylor admitted that no-one at that meeting discussed informing Dr Kelly of this advance on the previous day's press statement from the MoD.

In a moment of potential drama, Mr Dingemans read out in open court parts of a document that had been released from the government that very morning.

Despite nearly all of the document being redacted (blacked out), the document - shown for just a few seconds on screen in the court - appeared to be from John Scarlett, chair of the joint intelligence committee (JIC), from September last year, saying that "ownership" of the dossier belonged to No 10. If correct, this would appear to contradict the evidence of at least Mr Scarlett himself, and Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell and Mr Hoon, that the JIC had ownership.