Quickfire for The Record 30/01/10
Tanned, toned and talking the talk – Tony Blair showed he had lost none of his gifts of showmanship when he took the stand in front of the Chilcot inquiry.
If he appeared slightly nervous at first it did not take long for Teflon Tony to get into his stride. The tension in the room eased as his familiar voice began an apparently reasoned explanation of why Britain waged a war that cost the lives of 179 British service personnel, thousands of civilians casualties and fermented terrorism across the Middle East.
Mr Blair had arrived in secret two hours before the inquiry began. Security meant his life was not in danger but his reputation and his legacy were certainly at risk when he faced the public inquisition.
Anti-war protesters, who will haunt Tony Blair to the grave, formed a choir outside with Westminster Abbey in the background. This is how gladiator day at the Colosieum in ancient Rome must have looked with tents and scaffolds to shelter media crews and yellow jacketed centurions guarding the entrance to the arena.
An queue of the ordinary British public forming an orderly snaking shape to get through security brought the scene back to the 21st century. They sat on the lottery allocated seats in the inquiry room or the overflow hall where we were all glued to TV monitors.
But if this was to be Tony Blair's judgement day the lions turned out to be toothless. He quickly turned his dock into another swansong on the centre stage.
Fluent, polite but determined not to give any ground Mr Blair gently talked the inquiry and the world through his reasons for going to war. He, and only he it seemed, had seen the world shift on its axis after 9/11. It was only a matter of time before rogue nations like Iraq and terror organisations started swapping WMDs with apocalyptic consequences for us all.
Deeper tanned and with greyer hair he did not deviate an inch from the line that Saddam had to be taken out by any means necessary. These were not his actual words, he spoke of disarmament, compliance and military options. But he exhibited the same steely determination that took him through the million strong anti-war protests, the anger of bereaved parents, as he said there were no lies and no regrets.
He slipped up over his slip up with Fern Brittan. It was a clumsy U-turn to a 'when did you stop beating your wife' kind of question. But for the most part he was fluent. With the personal stakes so high in that political cauldron of he pulled it off. The panel had no real armour to match his version of history.
When he asks us to imagine 2010 with Saddam still in power he was also warning the world that it faces the same decisions all over again with Iran. Basically he and George Bush had the “cojones” to take out Saddam and the next generation of leaders had to show the same courage with Tehran.
It was defiant stuff. No mistakes, no apology no regret. He knew what he was doing. It was a first class, lawyerly defence laced with the political vision he has always been able to communicate.
He believed the invasion was right, he believed that the cabinet had been given their say, he believed that ultimately he had done the right thing.
He believed every single word as he uttered them. That was always Tony Blair's exceptional political gift.
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Friday, 29 January 2010
Chilcot coming back - will Blair slip up?
Rows and rows of pubic queuing quietly in the damp to get afternoon seats for the Chilcot inquiry as I come back into the Queen Elizabeth hall. Some family of the fallen soldiers amongst them.
Chilcot and Freedman (the historian who advised on Blair's Chicago 99 speech that was referenced in the morning)came through the crowd like a couple of gents on the way back from a lunchtime pint.
Blair appears to have conducted himself with some calm authority during the morning session. He turns each question to what he wants to talk about with the old "if I could just say" and "it's important to understand..."
Unless he makes some huge display of contrition or there is some disruption this afternoon he is on course for a command performance of I did it my way.
His message is certainly not contrite. When he asks us to imagine 2010 with Saddam still in power - with WMD capacity, with oil at $100 a barrel, and the international community losing its nerve - he is basically asking us to be thankful that he took the hard road to war in 2003.
He's also warning the world that it faces the same decisions all over again with Iran. Time and time again he has warned that Iran is involved in destabilisation in the middle east, has links with fundamental Islamists, and is going flat out to acquire nuclear weapons.
He batted away most of the serious questions on the 45 minute warning, the intelligence briefings and the opposition within cabinet. He insisted there was no deal signed in blood with Bush but that he said publicly and privately that he would go to war if sanctions and the UN route failed. Some will call that unrepentant Blair. Some in the Labour party will look at the way he's handling this pressure cooker and wonder why they ever got rid of him.
He does though face difficult questions on the legality of the war, I'd say, and needs more cross-examination of this issue of removal rather than disarmament.
Ach, I've just been offered a seat in the inquiry chamber but I'm going to have to write and listen all afternoon.
Chilcot and Freedman (the historian who advised on Blair's Chicago 99 speech that was referenced in the morning)came through the crowd like a couple of gents on the way back from a lunchtime pint.
Blair appears to have conducted himself with some calm authority during the morning session. He turns each question to what he wants to talk about with the old "if I could just say" and "it's important to understand..."
Unless he makes some huge display of contrition or there is some disruption this afternoon he is on course for a command performance of I did it my way.
His message is certainly not contrite. When he asks us to imagine 2010 with Saddam still in power - with WMD capacity, with oil at $100 a barrel, and the international community losing its nerve - he is basically asking us to be thankful that he took the hard road to war in 2003.
He's also warning the world that it faces the same decisions all over again with Iran. Time and time again he has warned that Iran is involved in destabilisation in the middle east, has links with fundamental Islamists, and is going flat out to acquire nuclear weapons.
He batted away most of the serious questions on the 45 minute warning, the intelligence briefings and the opposition within cabinet. He insisted there was no deal signed in blood with Bush but that he said publicly and privately that he would go to war if sanctions and the UN route failed. Some will call that unrepentant Blair. Some in the Labour party will look at the way he's handling this pressure cooker and wonder why they ever got rid of him.
He does though face difficult questions on the legality of the war, I'd say, and needs more cross-examination of this issue of removal rather than disarmament.
Ach, I've just been offered a seat in the inquiry chamber but I'm going to have to write and listen all afternoon.
Blair at the Iraq Inquiry - no early blows landed
Round One to Blair is the concensus in the media hall. My source in the actual chamber says that at the beginning proceedings were tense but that the atmosphere eased as Blair got into his stride and began articulating his case.
His argument, his defence if you like, is that he publicly and privately backed regime change but on the basis that Saddam's WMDs posed a huge threat to the west.
He has effectively denied the accusation made by Sir Christopher Mayer that there was a secret deal "signed in blood" at the crucial Crawford Ranch meeting in 2002.
Blair argued in public and in private that the UK would back military action if that was necessary. He refered to several speeches and press conferences in which he said that on terms. In other words no secret deal.
For Blair the world changed with 9/11, the "calculus of risk" changed. The combination of rogue states, WMDs and Islamist terrorism meant that tryrants like Saddam had to be faced down, and if necessary taken down, or the west would face nuclear-armed terrorists in a short time.
He slipped up once, when dealing with the Fern Britton interview. He resorted to verbage and admitted that he made a misake when he said last year that he would have wanted to get rid of Saddam even if he had know Iraq had no WMD
He's back in the hall mow, tanned and talking. Let's tune in...
His argument, his defence if you like, is that he publicly and privately backed regime change but on the basis that Saddam's WMDs posed a huge threat to the west.
He has effectively denied the accusation made by Sir Christopher Mayer that there was a secret deal "signed in blood" at the crucial Crawford Ranch meeting in 2002.
Blair argued in public and in private that the UK would back military action if that was necessary. He refered to several speeches and press conferences in which he said that on terms. In other words no secret deal.
For Blair the world changed with 9/11, the "calculus of risk" changed. The combination of rogue states, WMDs and Islamist terrorism meant that tryrants like Saddam had to be faced down, and if necessary taken down, or the west would face nuclear-armed terrorists in a short time.
He slipped up once, when dealing with the Fern Britton interview. He resorted to verbage and admitted that he made a misake when he said last year that he would have wanted to get rid of Saddam even if he had know Iraq had no WMD
He's back in the hall mow, tanned and talking. Let's tune in...
Live from the Coliseum - Blair due shortly
Whitehall 1212 is back and live at the Coliseum, or the Queen Elisabeth Conference as it is known. which is the stage for the most epic piece of political drama of the year.
I've been away for a while. I've changed jobs to the Daily Record and trying to slot into a new newspaper's technology and has left me baffled. I will be blogging regularly on the Record site just as soon as I figure out how to.( This will come just after I learn to write again and file on time.)
Anyway, back to the circus. Tony Blair has already arrived at the venue, the vast conference hall across the road from Westminster Abbey. There are scores of tv crews, sat dishes, presentation scaffolds and lights on the muddied lawn outside. Protesters, who seem to number fewer that the media, are corralled to one side of the hall at a good distance behind crowd barriers.
Some people are in the inquiry hall but most of the reporting you will be getting will come from here in the media hall, next door, where we are all lined up in front of giant screens like students waiting to take our exams.
Oh, we're on. He's here. More later.
I've been away for a while. I've changed jobs to the Daily Record and trying to slot into a new newspaper's technology and has left me baffled. I will be blogging regularly on the Record site just as soon as I figure out how to.( This will come just after I learn to write again and file on time.)
Anyway, back to the circus. Tony Blair has already arrived at the venue, the vast conference hall across the road from Westminster Abbey. There are scores of tv crews, sat dishes, presentation scaffolds and lights on the muddied lawn outside. Protesters, who seem to number fewer that the media, are corralled to one side of the hall at a good distance behind crowd barriers.
Some people are in the inquiry hall but most of the reporting you will be getting will come from here in the media hall, next door, where we are all lined up in front of giant screens like students waiting to take our exams.
Oh, we're on. He's here. More later.
Thursday, 14 January 2010
If Robbie Burns played football...
Philosophy Football, suppliers of t-shirts to the political classes, has brought out a Robbie Burns shirt to coincide with the Bard's 251st birthday.
Selected for the Philosophy Football T-shirt squad just in time for Burns night is Robbie's poetic tribute to the benefits of fair play.
You can see the navy shirt on their website with the immortal script:
"The honest heart that's free frae a' intended fraud or guile. However fortune kick the ba', Has ay some cause to smile."
There's Burns 25 on the back which would make it a good shirt for Malcolm Burns, of Sy and Glasgow, or Jimmy Burns, recently of the FT, or anyone for that matter who wants to combine poetry, politics and punting a ball up the field.
Available from www.philosophyfootball.com
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
The Russians are coming, Bulgarians too
There was a competition in Room 2 this morning for the most extravagant fur hat of the season. David Perry of the Press and Journal thought his Russian beaver skin* was a clear winner but Gerri Peev's Polar Bear* fur meant the Scotsman squeaked through as the winner.
(*No real animals were hurt in the making of this blog. All the fur is artificial)
Scottish Questions and carrier jobs alert
A trudge in through the snow for my last but one day on the Herald. And it's going to be quite a busy one.
Lord Turnbull is at the Iraq inquiry, there's Scottish Questions followed by Prime Minister's Questions, the first since the failed coup which seems like more than a weeek ago.
With only a pause for a cheese sandwitch that is followed by the Scottish Affairs Committee grilling City Minister Lord Myners on banking and Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy on Calman proposals.
Also Richard Norton-Taylor is throwing fresh doubts on the two huge aircraft carrier projects that are so important for Scottish defence jobs on the Clyde and Rosyth.
Norton-Taylor of the Guardian reckons the MoD will slash the order for Joint Strike Fighters from 140 to 70, bad news for Lossiemouth I would imagine. There would be a knock on for the two carriers - the Queen Elisabeth and the Prince of Wales - in that there would be less aircraft to fly off them. So at a cost of £4bn a piece why build two.
Labour would find this a difficult decision to make even under the most stringent strategic defence review but the Tories would lose no votes by cutting ship building jobs. A suitable topic for Scottish Questions which is in a little over an hour.
One piece of good news, my colleague Mike Settle has just walked in the door off his delayed Surbiton train. "What was it this time Mike, snow on the line?"
Lord Turnbull is at the Iraq inquiry, there's Scottish Questions followed by Prime Minister's Questions, the first since the failed coup which seems like more than a weeek ago.
With only a pause for a cheese sandwitch that is followed by the Scottish Affairs Committee grilling City Minister Lord Myners on banking and Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy on Calman proposals.
Also Richard Norton-Taylor is throwing fresh doubts on the two huge aircraft carrier projects that are so important for Scottish defence jobs on the Clyde and Rosyth.
Norton-Taylor of the Guardian reckons the MoD will slash the order for Joint Strike Fighters from 140 to 70, bad news for Lossiemouth I would imagine. There would be a knock on for the two carriers - the Queen Elisabeth and the Prince of Wales - in that there would be less aircraft to fly off them. So at a cost of £4bn a piece why build two.
Labour would find this a difficult decision to make even under the most stringent strategic defence review but the Tories would lose no votes by cutting ship building jobs. A suitable topic for Scottish Questions which is in a little over an hour.
One piece of good news, my colleague Mike Settle has just walked in the door off his delayed Surbiton train. "What was it this time Mike, snow on the line?"
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