Blair, the Iraq War, and JP Morgan

by **Tony Bennett** 28.05.12 19:25

Here's the interruption of Tony Blair's evidence by a protestor at the Leveson inquiry today. Given that he only had 10 seconds in which to give the viewing public some quality information about Blair, and his payments from JP Morgan, I thought he did very well - concise and to the point:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The protestor might well face charges for e.g. Public Order Act offences, or 'breach of the peace'.

He might well face a civil claim for defamation into the bargain.

But at least we will soon know how much Blair was paid by JP Morgan - the amounts, and the dates - even though the reason for the payments may be withheld.

by **tigger** 28.05.12 19:50

I thought it was brilliant!

Blair said something like (with strong swiping hand movements)

may I just say - JP Morgan about them and Iraq - I never had a discussion with them about that - or any relationship between them and Iraq.

Blair didn't say at any point that JPM wasn't paying him 6 million a year .

Not having a discussion with them about Iraq doesn't preclude a third person having such a discussion and passing it on to Blair and vice versa.

I'm also not forgetting Dr. Kelly - remember Dr. Kelly - Mr. Blair?

Remember Hans Blix from the UN - who stated in his report that Saddam didn't have WMDs?
Hans Blix who said at the end of his report:
'Saddam Hussein is the kind of man who will put up a notice 'Beware of the dog' without going to the expense of buying the dog.'

by Willo 28.05.12 21:50

What a strange occurance.

I wonder.

How did the protester get through the security which in todays climate, one would think, was very tight? Even the initial collaring of the protester seemed half hearted. it was almost as he was allowed to get his points out before being gently dragged away.

Was it a frustrated journalist with proper accreditation who decided that his job was less important than getting his message out there. Maybe his paper had the information about payments made to Mr Blair but it refused to publish the facts. Due maybe to a 'D' notice or some sort of political collaboration that stopped anything entering the public area.

Was it a member of the public who bluffed his way through security to get his point across? One thing for sure is that the best of British investigational journalism will be crawling all over this. Actually, writing 'British' and ' investigating journalism' in the same sentence doesn't feel right. So his protest might be in vain.

Was it a diversionary tactic? An intentional lie to shift the focus from something more damaging. Take a small hit now and when the allegations get disproved, garner the sympathy. Meanwhile other clandestine operations carry on.

Was it a lunatic who got lucky, bypassed security then found his way to the correct court to have his say?

Was it a warning for Mr Blair? A stage to prove that if he is accessible at all times. "Nowhere to hide Mr.Blair we are that powerful".

Try as I might I can't connet the McCann's. So that makes me suspicious straight away [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.].

I wonder.

In days gone past I mostly accepted all parts of the media and the news they covered, these days even the most innocuous story seems to have several angles. Everything is smoke and mirrors to cover up the games and the pleasures of a elite few. The sooner this group is uncovered the better for all of us.

by **Tony Bennett** 28.05.12 22:16

Willo wrote:What a strange occurrence.

I wonder.

How did the protester get through the security which in todays climate, one would think, was very tight? Even the initial collaring of the protester seemed half hearted. It was almost as he was allowed to get his points out before being gently dragged away.

A very good question and I think you have provided some interesting answers. I tend to think this was an articulate man, well versed in Blair's dealings, who was perhaps an accredited journalist as you suggest. If a private security firm is handling Leveson security, the firm's bosses will now be shivering like jelly in fear of losing lots of contrtacts - it must have been someone who was clever enough to blag his way through...As someone has already noted, Blair didn't deny the payments, just said they were nothing to do with the Iraq war. It feels like this man has released something vital into the public domain - the kind of thing that is not meant to happen when you employ vast numbers of PR men whose job it is 'to control what comes out in the media'. It will be truly fascinating to see what the British mainstream media make of this...

by Guest 28.05.12 22:41

Blair the envoy 'pushed deals worth billions' for investment bank that pays him £2m a year

By [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
UPDATED: 10:36, 26 September 2011

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Fresh questions: Tony Blair is facing allegations over his role as Middle East peace envoy

Tony Blair is facing fresh questions over his role as a Middle East peace envoy after claims that he has used the position to promote lucrative business deals for clients of an investment bank that pays him £2million a year.

As a representative of the Quartet –the UN, the EU, the U.S. and Russia – the former prime minister is tasked with fostering peace between Israel and Palestine.

But he has also used the post to promote two contracts worth more than £1billion in Palestine with British Gas and mobile phone firm Wataniya – both major clients of J P Morgan, the U.S. investment bank which employs him as a senior adviser.

Mr Blair championed the development of a huge gas field operated by British Gas off the coast of Gaza, as well as the opening up of radio frequencies so Wataniya could operate a phone network in the West Bank.

A Channel 4 Dispatches documentary to be broadcast tonight claims Mr Blair’s behaviour has led to a conflict of interest.

Wataniya Mobile’s chief executive officer Bassam Hanoun said that although the network had been built, it was ‘dead’ until Mr Blair’s forceful intervention with Israeli ministers.

Wataniya is owned by the Qatari telecoms giant QTEL, which bought the network’s parent company Wataniya International in 2007 with a £1.3billion loan arranged by J P Morgan.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Deal: Tony Blair, at the launch of the mobile phone network, put pressure on Israel's prime minister to save Wataniya

The deal for the gas field, worth £3.9billion, has not yet been signed but is a development Mr Blair has been pushing for the Israeli government to adopt.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said: ‘Tony Blair has advocated for both the Wataniya project and the Gaza gas development at the direct request of Palestinians. It is his responsibility as Quartet representative to work to build the Palestinian economy.

More...

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

‘In neither case was Mr Blair even aware that J P Morgan had a connection with the company. He never discussed it with them. They never raised it with him.’

Since leaving Downing Street in 2007, Mr Blair has been widely criticised for blurring his official duties with lucrative opportunities for his private consulting firm Tony Blair Associates.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Peace Envoy: Tony Blair with Palestinian police cadets in the West Bank town of Jericho in September 2007 -he now faces questions on how he has used his position

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Well connected: A billboard advertising Wataniya - Tony Blair helped rescue the phone company

The Dispatches documentary, The Wonderful World Of Tony Blair, found that unlike the UN or the British Parliament, the Quartet does not have a code of conduct preventing such behaviour.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Anis Nacrour, a senior French diplomat who worked for Mr Blair at the Quartet’s Jerusalem office, said: ‘I think he makes his own rules depending on the experience he has as a former prime minister for over ten years.’

Mr Nacrour also believes the Quartet is merely a ‘smokescreen’ for American-Israeli business interests in the region.

Dr Nicholas Allen, an expert on standards in public life at the University of London, added: ‘It is not altogether clear that Blair is separating his work as the representative of the Office of the Quartet and his business interests.

‘Clearly if he was holding a ministerial office in Britain, that kind of conflict . . . wouldn’t be tolerated.’

The programme will also reveal how in the four years since leaving Downing Street, Mr Blair has amassed more money than any other ex-British prime minister.

Mr Blair’s Quartet post – which he accepted after leaving Downing Street in 2007 – is unpaid, but its substantial expenses are part-funded by the British taxpayer.

STEPHEN GLOVER: An ill-judged obsession with making money

Tony Blair's obsession with making millions of dollars on the back of his reputation as a former Prime Minister is well known.

So, too, is the readiness of this supposedly devout Christian to rub shoulders with some very unsavoury characters.

Even so, the latest revelations about the extent of his relations with the monstrous ex-Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, take one’s breath away.

At the very least, Mr Blair appears to have compromised the dignity of his position as an erstwhile Prime Minister, and made a nonsense of his present role as a Middle Eastern peace envoy.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Too close: Tony Blair meets Gaddafi in 2007

To pay one, or even two, visits to Gaddafi might have been deemed a regrettable necessity. In fact, it has emerged that Mr Blair had six private meetings with the Libyan dictator in the three years after he left Downing Street.

On at least two of these occasions he flew to Tripoli on a luxurious private jet put at his disposal by the Libyan regime.

As a former British ambassador to Libya has recently remarked, it is plain that Mr Blair was such a frequent visitor to the country because he was pursuing his business interests there.

The former PM is paid £2 million a year by U.S. investment bank J P Morgan. In January 2009, he visited Gaddafi when J P Morgan was trying to negotiate a multi-billion-dollar deal with the Libyan Investment Authority.

The deal came to nothing, and the bank denies that Mr Blair’s presence in Libya had anything to do with it. I will need a lot more convincing. However enchanting Mr Blair may have found Gaddafi’s company, it is impossible to believe he went to Libya so often simply to swap stories with his old friend.

Unless, of course, he was also discussing the early release of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, who had been convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, which caused the deaths of 270 people, 43 of them British.

Five of their meetings took place in the 14 months before Al Megrahi was released on supposedly compassionate grounds by the Scottish government, in August 2009.

We already knew that Gaddafi was so obsessed with getting Al Megrahi out of jail that a wobbly Foreign Office feared the Libyan leader ‘might seek to exact vengeance’ if he wasn’t set free. Mr Blair’s frequent presence in Tripoli around this time raises the suspicion that he was involved in some sort of deal.

The accommodation, which he brokered with Gaddafi in March 2004 while still PM, may have been the right thing to do from the point of view of realpolitik, but there is no defence imaginable for his later clasping the monster to his bosom and discussing business arrangements with him.

This was the same genocidal maniac who had supported the IRA, ordered the Lockerbie bombing and visited atrocities on his own people — for example, the massacre of more than 1,200 prisoners at Abu Salim prison in Tripoli in a single month in 1996.

There are different ways of making huge sums of money. We may have squirmed when we learned that the former PM had been paid £240,000 to deliver a single speech in China in November 2007. But if his hosts were credulous and generous enough to throw their money at him, there could hardly be a valid moral objection. Not so where the mass-murdering Gaddafi is concerned.

I’m afraid the Libyan tyrant is not the only unsuitable leader with whom Mr Blair has been on friendly terms. He has also visited Rwanda, whose president, Paul Kagame, has been accused by a UN report of horrifying war crimes and human rights abuses.

Mr Blair’s charity, Africa Governance Initiative, has had employees working at the heart of Kagame’s regime. He has been accused of blurring the lines between his humanitarian work in Rwanda and his business interests after bringing teams of young executives from J P Morgan to work for his charity in the country.

There is no mention in Mr Blair’s various websites of his private visits to Gaddafi. This strongly suggests that he knows they were ill-judged, though it may be too much to hope he feels any shame. These visits to an Arab despot were apparently made despite – not because of – his role as a Middle Eastern peace envoy.

Given the intractable nature of the problem of Israel and Palestine, no one could easily blame Mr Blair for his lack of success. But one cannot respectably mix diplomacy with business. I was not surprised to read yesterday that our ex-PM has also befriended a billionaire Israeli divorcee, though there is no evidence of impropriety. This relationship is certainly according to form, inasmuch as one can’t imagine Tony Blair befriending an Israeli pauper.

It gets worse. According to an edition of Dispatches to be shown on Channel 4 this evening, Mr Blair has persuaded the Israeli government to open up radio frequencies so that phone company Wataniya Mobile can operate on the West Bank. The company’s owner, a Qatari telecoms giant, is a significant client of none other than J P Morgan.

Dispatches also alleges that Mr Blair has championed the development of a huge gas field off Gaza potentially worth more than £4billion. The suggestion is of a connection between British Gas’s ownership of the right to operate the field and the fact that the company is a major client of J P Morgan.

If the claims made by Dispatches are correct, Mr Blair faces very serious charges that he has abused his position as a peace envoy to promote the interests of J P Morgan, as well as his own – though this is something he and the company deny.

Most people will probably register little surprise. But if Mr Blair has any hopes of rehabilitating his reputation for good sense and integrity, he must supply a full account and justification of his travels to Libya, as well as his dealings in Palestine, and offer himself for interrogation by one of the hard men of the BBC. Don’t count on that happening any time soon.

Read more: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by justme3 28.05.12 22:50

When trying to understand why Blair went along with the Iraq war, look at FBI, CIA, Operation Ore, Brown, Mandelson, Robertson and many, many more.

by friedtomatoes 28.05.12 22:51

at the protester
lol!

good for him

blair = :puke:

by **Tony Bennett** 29.05.12 0:25

Yes, candyfloss, many thanks for publishing these most revealing articles.

Let's put the forcus back on to the Blair-Murdoch relationship for a moment.

Can I please invite all members and visitors here to listen to the first 2 minutes or so from this 4-minute clip from this morning's BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme (while it's available):

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

There you will find revealed in graphic detail the admission of Lance Price, Blair's private secretary, that, quote:

"There was nothing that we were not prepared to do to court the media, especially News International"

and that:

"The understanding was that as long as Murdoch had a free rein so far as his business empire was concerned, he would pretty much support all our policies and give us good press coverage".

Lance Price wrote a book called: "Where the power lies", analysing the power shifts of the last century. My undersanding is that he says it has moved away from politicians and government and towards the print and TV media.

The Murdoch Empire = British government = Metropolitan Police web of power, influence, intrigue and corruption surely confirms his analysis?

by **tigger** 29.05.12 6:28

But there's nothing about the fact that Blair visited Murdoch in Australia - making a special trip for this - soon after he became leader of the Labour Party.

Imo that's when the agreement was hammered out - years before Lance Price became TB's secretary. I wonder where those snippets of news are stored.

Blair didn't say yesterday that the money he receives isn't to do with Iraq. He denied a direct connection between himself, Iraq and PJM. So I think it was an indirect one.
Blair is on record as saying that if he hadn't had the WMDs to use as an argument, he'd have to have thought of another excuse.
(Sorry, I don't know where to find this but like many of the statements of the McCanns - you can't make it up).

New Labour created the 'in bed with the press' concept. In that respect one would have to say that Major was the last of a long line of PMs who were not ruled by the press. By public opinion possibly - but that's quite another thing.

by **tigger** 29.05.12 8:24

On a lighter note: perhaps Teflon Tony could use this:

WMD --weapons of minimum destruction - shoes thrown at visiting presidents may cause bruises and other injury
WMD - weapons of medium destruction - a half-brick packs quite a punch - many, many bricks found in Iraq, particularly after a bombardment.
WMD - weapons of mass destruction --- not found

As two types of WMD were found to exist in very large numbers in Iraq - the invasion was justified.

To minimise damage to civilians a large part of the offensive was a tactic known 'carpet bombing'.

Allied Carpets - (CIA and MI5 and MI6) decided to use their stock of shagpile to victory.

The forced imposition of democracy in Iraq is a 100% success, introducing peace and prosperity to the entire nation. Not to mention home improvements..

(A friend sent this to me ages ago).

by bobbin 29.05.12 8:58

Tony Bennett wrote:Yes, candyfloss, many thanks for publishing these most revealing articles.

Let's put the forcus back on to the Blair-Murdoch relationship for a moment.

Can I please invite all members and visitors here to listen to the first 2 minutes or so from this 4-minute clip from this morning's BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme (while it's available):

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

There you will find revealed in graphic detail the admission of Lance Price, Blair's private secretary, that, quote:

"There was nothing that we were not prepared to do to court the media, especially News International"

and that:

"The understanding was that as long as Murdoch had a free rein so far as his business empire was concerned, he would pretty much support all our policies and give us good press coverage".

Lance Price wrote a book called: "Where the power lies", analysing the power shifts of the last century. My undersanding is that he says it has moved away from politicians and government and towards the print and TV media.

The Murdoch Empire = British government = Metropolitan Police web of power, influence, intrigue and corruption surely confirms his analysis?

Just prior to the red highlighting, at point 2.07 on the video clip, is mentioned the word 'PACT'. As if by implication there will be Nothing in writing, just an understanding. Even Bliar on Leveson yesterday intimated that this is how Murdoch operates, nothing spoken but nevertheless the meaning, exchange and requirements would be fully 'understood'.
The fact that David Payne used the word 'we have a PACT' has always given me concern. To my mind he says it in such a way as to feel completely safe in himself to be able to snub and dismiss, all investigation attempts, to say, go away you annoying little flies, we are immune from justice, we are out of reach, we are protected and you can't touch us. All you need to know is that we have a PACT and that is more than enough explanation that we should ever need to give to you.

Evidently a PACT is a most powerful thing, and we see that it has been tacitly used at the highest levels possible, yet it can be exposed, as it is being now, in front of our very eyes, in the Leveson Inquiry. I do hope that the Payne, McCann and whoever else's 'PACT' will be equally unveiled before too long.

Given that the Murdoch press, News International, the Sun, former News of the World, has been so 'active' in the McCann long drawn out story, is Payne's use of the word a slipped clue as to what might have been behind what looks like a pre-planned event, albeit one that might have gone wrong and has been as Murat put it, the biggest c*ck up in history.

by **tigger** 29.05.12 9:17

From the Sydney Morning Herald: 29/5/12
Former British prime minister Tony Blair has given a detailed account of how he flew to Australia in the mid-1990s to secure political backing from Rupert Murdoch, but insisted there had "never been a deal".

"I would not have been going all the way round the world if it had not been a very deliberate and very strategic decision that I was going to try to persuade them, and I had a minimum and a maximum objective," Blair told an inquiry into media ethics in London on Monday.

"The minimum objective was to stop them tearing us to pieces and the maximum objective to open the way to support," said Blair about his 1995 visit to Hayman Island, where he addressed News Corporation executives.
unquote.

by **Tony Bennett** 29.05.12 10:26

The protestor was David Lawley Wakelin.

He was arrested for a breach of the peace, and put in the cells, but not charged:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

by justme3 29.05.12 17:11

Tony Bennett wrote:The protestor was David Lawley Wakelin.

He was arrested for a breach of the peace, and put in the cells, but not charged:

[url=http://news.sky.com/home/politics/article/16236904

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Can someone be charged for speaking the truth?

by **PeterMac** 29.05.12 18:27

justme3 wrote:
Tony Bennett wrote:The protestor was David Lawley Wakelin.
He was arrested for a breach of the peace, and put in the cells, but not charged:
[url=http://news.sky.com/home/politics/article/16236904
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Can someone be charged for speaking the truth?

TB pretty well has been !

by Guest 29.05.12 19:42

Robert Green (the spokesman for Hollie Greig and her mother) would certainly agree that people can be charged for telling the truth.

by Snifferdog 30.05.12 13:37

bobbin wrote:
Tony Bennett wrote:Yes, candyfloss, many thanks for publishing these most revealing articles.

Let's put the forcus back on to the Blair-Murdoch relationship for a moment.

Can I please invite all members and visitors here to listen to the first 2 minutes or so from this 4-minute clip from this morning's BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme (while it's available):

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

There you will find revealed in graphic detail the admission of Lance Price, Blair's private secretary, that, quote:

"There was nothing that we were not prepared to do to court the media, especially News International"

and that:

"The understanding was that as long as Murdoch had a free rein so far as his business empire was concerned, he would pretty much support all our policies and give us good press coverage".

Lance Price wrote a book called: "Where the power lies", analysing the power shifts of the last century. My undersanding is that he says it has moved away from politicians and government and towards the print and TV media.

The Murdoch Empire = British government = Metropolitan Police web of power, influence, intrigue and corruption surely confirms his analysis?

Just prior to the red highlighting, at point 2.07 on the video clip, is mentioned the word 'PACT'. As if by implication there will be Nothing in writing, just an understanding. Even Bliar on Leveson yesterday intimated that this is how Murdoch operates, nothing spoken but nevertheless the meaning, exchange and requirements would be fully 'understood'.
The fact that David Payne used the word 'we have a PACT' has always given me concern. To my mind he says it in such a way as to feel completely safe in himself to be able to snub and dismiss, all investigation attempts, to say, go away you annoying little flies, we are immune from justice, we are out of reach, we are protected and you can't touch us. All you need to know is that we have a PACT and that is more than enough explanation that we should ever need to give to you.

Evidently a PACT is a most powerful thing, and we see that it has been tacitly used at the highest levels possible, yet it can be exposed, as it is being now, in front of our very eyes, in the Leveson Inquiry. I do hope that the Payne, McCann and whoever else's 'PACT' will be equally unveiled before too long.

Given that the Murdoch press, News International, the Sun, former News of the World, has been so 'active' in the McCann long drawn out story, is Payne's use of the word a slipped clue as to what might have been behind what looks like a pre-planned event, albeit one that might have gone wrong and has been as Murat put it, the biggest c*ck up in history.

Yes true Bobbin, a PACT, another name for a kind of "gentlemans agreement", nothing on paper but held together by complicity and possible blackmail? True Bobbin, David Pane made a major slip up there, sounds to me like a statement made by a person who was irritated by questions but comfortable in the knowledge that he is part of a "protected circle of people," and as you say sounds preplanned.

by Snifferdog 30.05.12 14:28

tigger wrote:I thought it was brilliant!

Blair said something like (with strong swiping hand movements)

may I just say - JP Morgan about them and Iraq - I never had a discussion with them about that - or any relationship between them and Iraq.

Blair didn't say at any point that JPM wasn't paying him 6 million a year .

Not having a discussion with them about Iraq doesn't preclude a third person having such a discussion and passing it on to Blair and vice versa.

I'm also not forgetting Dr. Kelly - remember Dr. Kelly - Mr. Blair?

Remember Hans Blix from the UN - who stated in his report that Saddam didn't have WMDs?
Hans Blix who said at the end of his report:
'Saddam Hussein is the kind of man who will put up a notice 'Beware of the dog' without going to the expense of buying the dog.'

Ever so slightly off topic but relevant re. Blair. Politicians are in the bankers pockets. The last independent one fell a few months ago. Muammar Ghadaffi, love him or hate him, Libya was a solvent country and has vast reserves of oil. Ghadaffi had many supporters in his country who had a good standard of living. Unrest was drummed up through the net via facebook, carried forward by a motley crew of militants in Libya. What a coup for the internationalists! Libya like Iraq went from a thriving country to a bombed out hole. Naturally Tony Blair will deny the Iraq fiasco. It stands to reason that politicians were complicit in the lies arranged so convincingly on a plate by the media for public consumption. The way that wars are financed is by the bankers who stand to make Huge Profits, our respective countries being in debt which every citizen is responsible through the government to pay back with Interest. (In the 2nd world war both sides were financed by these bankers). Never mind the profits made by arms manufacturers and the spoils of war and patriotic people used as fodder to line their pockets. Some people have unimagined wealth and will Never have enough. Selfishly destroying the world in their greed for more profits. Such disgusting psychopathic behaviour. Are we starting to see what is behind the mccs?

by mira2 01.06.12 1:08

The question is this: why did we need an enquiry in the first place. After all it is no secret that Blair is a war criminal as is his buddy Bush, nor is it any secret that Murdoch the right wing Republican was the middle man that made it all possible. Cameron had the chance to change the course of history, what he has prooved is that he is just another ass in the mix, and needs to be told where to go.

The age old problem with the British public is that they have had it to good for too long, they have no understanding of struggle, an Arab Spring is not about to happen anytime soon on these shores, apathy rules the day, and inept politicians and their masters are given a free reign to mess up the dynamics of this little planet of ours for a little while longer.

The tide will turn.

by **tigger** 01.06.12 7:57

mira2 wrote:The question is this: why did we need an enquiry in the first place. After all it is no secret that Blair is a war criminal as is his buddy Bush, nor is it any secret that Murdoch the right wing Republican was the middle man that made it all possible. Cameron had the chance to change the course of history, what he has prooved is that he is just another ass in the mix, and needs to be told where to go.

The age old problem with the British public is that they have had it to good for too long, they have no understanding of struggle, an Arab Spring is not about to happen anytime soon on these shores, apathy rules the day, and inept politicians and their masters are given a free reign to mess up the dynamics of this little planet of ours for a little while longer.

The tide will turn.

I certainly hope so! It has been said that one cannot have democracy without an educated population.

New Labour made sure that education wasn't going to stand in the way of their plans. Alice in Wonderland - prizes for all and nobody wins. A population which considers itself 'entitled' without ever having to do anything for this entitlement.
This doesn't create a happy or contented population, quite the reverse.

by mira2 23.06.12 23:49

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] on Fri Jun 01, 2012 6:57 am

mira2 wrote:The question is this: why did we need an enquiry in the first place. After all it is no secret that Blair is a war criminal as is his buddy Bush, nor is it any secret that Murdoch the right wing Republican was the middle man that made it all possible. Cameron had the chance to change the course of history, what he has prooved is that he is just another ass in the mix, and needs to be told where to go.

The age old problem with the British public is that they have had it to good for too long, they have no understanding of struggle, an Arab Spring is not about to happen anytime soon on these shores, apathy rules the day, and inept politicians and their masters are given a free reign to mess up the dynamics of this little planet of ours for a little while longer.

The tide will turn.

I certainly hope so! It has been said that one cannot have democracy without an educated population.

New Labour made sure that education wasn't going to stand in the way of their plans. Alice in Wonderland - prizes for all and nobody wins. A population which considers itself 'entitled' without ever having to do anything for this entitlement.
This doesn't create a happy or contented population, quite the reverse.
__________
tigger, you are a wise soul (well, you are on my wavelenght so I am going to say nice things about you ).
You know, what is interesting about your comment is the fact that New Labour (nothing whatsoever to do with the Labour Party of old) under Blair's reign used and abused thieir privilege of office. When Blair bluffed his way into power pretending to be a man of the people, a Labour man, the Labour party lost any credibility as a party. More so, looking back it was media manipulation that allowed this freak to get away with destroying the very fabric of everything and anything that was, and is in the best interests of the people. Murdoch, Blair, the Bush family are in my mind terrorists, and their self serving abuse of privilege and the cancer that they spread across the globe at the expense of the people in order to line their own pockets is a scandal that must be exposed.
Here in the UK we have lost a whole generation of youth to Blairs selfish ambitions at the taxpayers expense.
What is it going to take to clean up the system.