Comment at end
31st May, 2009
IT’S NOT A LEGAL REQUIREMENT TO HAVE A SCREW LOOSE TO COMMENT AT THE INDEPENDENT
BUT IT HELPS, IF YOU WANT TO MEET LIKE ‘MINDS’
I came across this article earlier in The Independent on “Tony Blair & rendition – Wait for the facts.” The article itself was the usual Indie traducement of Blair by innuendo, and in the normal run of things wouldn’t raise an eyelid. In the end I ended up replying to many of the imbecile-like comments there. Once I get the bit between my teeth …
‘MURDERING’ BLAIR & THE REASONS FOR BLAIR
It really comes to something when a paper’s readers think they know everything about Tony Blair and Iraq and war decisions, despite never having sat it on any meetings nor having taken part in any of the Iraq Inquiries.
And from that ‘knowledge’ they conclude that no fate is too tough for him.
Their ‘knowledge’ comes from the press, mainly, but not exclusively The Independent. The ‘feral press’ speech of Blair’s just prior to leaving office actually named The Independent. He clearly felt hurt and damaged by their long-standing attacks on him and his integrity and on his reasons for going to war.
Only in one of the comments to this article is there anything about his humanity. The rest refer only to his ‘inhumanity’, ‘war-mongering’, ‘murder of millions’, ‘lying to parliament ‘etc. There is no reference to the good works he has done in saving people from death – Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland. Nor is there reference to the fact that many people in Iraq see him as a hero in this, only the second true democray in the Middle East (Israel being the other.)
Several of these ‘commenters’ gloat over their dreams of a trial at The Hague, refer to Nuremberg and look forward to hanging Blair in Iraq, of all places!
Do these people EVER think that Blair has a scrap of humanity worth considering? A family which might be affected by this language? If not, they need to visit a psychiatrist and they need to do it sharpish. I hate to think that such as these actually wander free among us in their own ignorant omniscience.
Why do they lay aside so carelessly “innocent until proven guilty” when applied to Blair? He uniquely in this country is guilty until proven innocent.
They are dangerous people, these Independent commenters. VERY dangerous.
Here’s another Independent holier-than-thou article, also published today, aided and abetted by the usual suspects.
Tags: Iraq, murdering Blair in the press, rendition, The Independent, Tony Blair
Tony Blair 
June 1, 2009 at 9:26 am |
It is not amusing.He is just a disgrace to humanity
June 1, 2009 at 9:56 am |
“Amusing”? “Amusing”?
This is not meant to be amusing. It is disgraceful behaviour.
People who insist on the relentless destruction of any individual, whether politician or not are guilty of at the very least libel.
Perhaps even treason.
And in a country where freedom REALLY had been destroyed, as your type often claim, you’d have felt the full force of the law by now.
If Blair is a “disgrace” – WHY exactly?
Facile blank statements such as the above show the vacuity of your “argument”. They are only backed up by third party reports from such ’eminent’ publications (and interpretations of inquiries) as The Independent, who will NEVER be persuaded that Blair had ANY good intentions over Iraq.
Does he deserve NO recognition for any of the good works he has delivered – FOI, devolution, Africa, NHS/Education changes, Northern Ireland? Are ALL of those areas too “a disgrace to humanity”?
Do none of them register as against his being a “disgrace”? Or are you so convinced of your own rightness that there is nothing he has ever done that should go in the PLUS column?
I did not mean it as a joke. Until people like you balance your thoughts and arguments you are clearly candidates for clinical study.
It’s very dangerous to have such misguided people wandering free. IMHO.
June 1, 2009 at 9:46 am |
Oh come on Cherie – the game is up… go on a long vacation (like 30 years) and take Tony and Mandy with you
June 1, 2009 at 12:33 pm |
Cherie? Me?
Wrong again, Trojan Horace.
June 1, 2009 at 3:18 pm |
what gets me is if blair goes to court which i doubt will happen he will be found guilty according to these. what happens if he’s not found guilty? what are they going to do then? and all this churning up in the press may it continue cos at least then the chance of blair being prosecuted will be zero because his defence will be able to claim he can’t have a fair trial.
June 1, 2009 at 5:11 pm |
Exactly, margaret. Just what I said during the Honours debacle. He would never get a fair trial because of the publicity and the prejudice already seeped into the brains of the gullible (Indie & Guardian readers, as well as others.)
Perhaps that’s why he never sues any of the b******s.
Your other point – if he ever were tried and found not guilty (as he would be), the Indie crowd, “democrats” and “believers in the law” to a man would NEVER accept it.
After such a court case, where he would be found not guilty of course, I would sincerely hope he would THEN sue every penny out of these low-life.
June 2, 2009 at 12:09 am |
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June 18, 2009 at 4:59 pm |
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June 19, 2009 at 11:35 pm |
Your monnicker came up when I googled to find the Indie thread you refer to. Added a few bits.
To post on the Guardinid or Dully Tele is worse, oppose the anti HMG view and they want limbs.
Toodley – pippity!
June 20, 2009 at 12:56 am |
Right, Quietzapple,
Or they’ll settle for your head!
Great to hear from you again.
Have you seen my apology to Gordon?
I do think he is suffering in this job. And no bloody wonder! It may have been a Mandelson suggestion, but I am glad he said all this at The Guardian. We need to be reminded that politicians are people too.
June 20, 2009 at 8:19 am |
True, yes I have read that, not your apology though.
Extremes of cynicism and abuse of politicians have occurred in previous ages.
This however is part of a tendentious movement at the behest of billionaires who either run our press, or have bought the tory party. It is directed towards regime change, the means is a bent election in which Ashcroft has already spent £5m or £10m, accounts vary.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/steve-richards/steve-richards-open-contempt-for-politicians-is-neither-daring-nor-clever-1669919.html especially the end, which was prophetic, and the url which summarises the fools who are boring me off blogs.
Generally I assume that the abuses they offer are projective, and so describe them.
Another Dully Tele Propagandist Pierce on the Breakfast TV with the presenters who lie. Insisting that all the redacted info be published, including the inaccuracies, and the information MI5 redacted because it raised security risks, such as addresses.
http://quietzapples.blogspot.com/
June 20, 2009 at 10:42 am |
Hi QZ,
Abuse bellows, praise whispers. (Perhaps I’ll write a post around that.)
For proof of that, read this account of “The Fallen: Legacy of Iraq”, which I missed, btw:
What picture are you left with after reading that? The contemplative balanced thoughts of two of them, or the revenge of the woman with her feet on Blair’s lifeless head?
A no-brainer. Abuse bellows.
And regarding general online & press criticism of politicians – I don’t know why the general public have allowed vitriol and personal hatred to creep into their cynicism. I don’t know if it’s only a right-wing thing. It can also be found at the Guardian and the Independent – neither right-wing. I think it is a societal thing, bred from easy TV violence and a general acceptance that “they” will get their come-uppance.
Steve Richards did not get a lot of support for his ‘take it easy on politicians’ article, did he?
It has been ever thus since the press – and I mean the PRESS rather than the bloggers – started to question the integrity of the present government. So that’s from at the latest, about 2002, I reckon.
June 20, 2009 at 10:56 am |
Disgusting I agree.
Brown has been treated still worse, so much so that a search for “kiddy fiddler’s grin” now only produces a few hits, most, including the originals on the Daily Mail, have been removed to protect the guilty.
Removals of such material from Guido Fawkes is truly strange, suggesting orders from above I suspect.
Strange also, is it not, that Paul Staines was bankrupt, and now rich enough to own a couple of houses, and claims that he makes his living from selling online advertising, but there was none on his site when I posted there? (once out of two attempts, he didn’t post the info that his company is registered in the WIndies to avoid libel actions, and tax too no doubt)
Were I a billionaire wanting to bring down HMG I’d pay him to blog and encourage the levels of abuse and libels he does.
Incidentally he was on TV once I saw, but the Beeb had to apologise to Peter Hain whom he libeled. They say he doesn’t think he is telegenic, so Iain Dale and Pierce do the TV.
June 20, 2009 at 11:06 am |
So you reckon Staines, aka Guido, is in the employ of the Right? Maybe. But the Right for most of his time, if not all, were still with Blair and even Brown. I don’t know how accurate this theory is, QZ.
The commenters on Guido’s site seem to me generally uncouth illiterates. I think anarchists rule there. I have seen Guido praise Blair at times and I have assumed he has a grudging respect still. ALthough it may just be to bang more nails into the Brown coffin.
I saw that Newsnight programme with Guido. He was alright, but no better than that. He’s like MOST of his commenters – BIG on the nifty, written sound-bite, but average on the REAL debate.
June 20, 2009 at 11:17 am |
Follow the money.
The Barclays, Laidlaw and Ashcroft were never Blairite, though they may at times have been glad Blair was not replaced by John Cruddas.
Do you really imagine that those who place their advertsing through Paul Staines are or were Labour supporters of any kind whatsoever?
Staines’ declared aim is regime change, and, if there is a Tory Government, the same again.
Neow his ‘sponsors’ may pull the plug if Cameron wins, or when he is replaced by someone more to their taste (heavens though, he is malleable!)
Guido Fawkes, as Steve Richards points out in the article to which I posted the link, is a tool. One can drop a tool.
June 20, 2009 at 11:20 am |
Sorry, rather Steve Richards points out that he might just as well be a tool of the billionaire press :
“The Sunday Times alleged that Michael Foot was linked with the KGB. Neil Kinnock was portrayed as evil, dangerous and mad. On the day of his by-election in Chesterfield Tony Benn was portrayed as insane by the Sun. Cherie Blair, the wife of a politician, was frequently described as a wicked witch. The entire New Labour spin operation and the timid policies that accompanied it were set up not out of arrogance but from a defensive fear of being destroyed by newspapers and now the internet.
“The creator of the Guido Fawkes website, Paul Staines, is in my view one of the most influential figures in the British media. One day this week I heard five items on the Today programme that followed up his stories or his observations. Politicians have not learnt how to cope with an individual who has as much impact as entire newspapers. He is one of the reasons why Derek Draper, the recipient of McBride’s emails, felt the need for a left of centre equivalent.”
June 20, 2009 at 11:37 am
QZ,
The press is FAR too powerful as are the civil and human rights brigade. The government has been running scared of them all for some time – since when Blair dropped his halo.
Why was the last major speech Blair gave about the feral beast press “tearing peple to bits”? Because he had been its main prey.
It was an accurate speech then and of course criticised. By the PRESS! But nothing has really changed. The press are more ballsy and thus more unbalanced. And this rubs off on the bloggers, who are failry unbalanced in the first place!!!? Well, most of them.
As a result censorship is on its way, imho. But it may take a political suicide from someone seriously damaged and in unbearable despair for this to happen.
And at Guido’s site? They’d laugh. Seriously unbalanced.
June 20, 2009 at 11:26 am |
Ah but QZ, Murdoch was convinced by Blair!
I’m not too keen on the conspiratorial business, so frequently used by Fawkes’ commenters. And you can hardly complain if the Right came to New Labour – and brought their money – and has now deserted the “sinking ship”.
I don’t think Fawkes is as important as many think – he is only a catalyst around which other dissatisfied types gather. Not a catalyst for positive change. There is little positive at his site. It is all abuse.
And as you say he could turn the other way as soon as Cameron got into power. He’s more anti-politician than anti any party.
The supreme anarchist.
So, yes, possibly pliable.
He doesn’t concern me as much as the mainstream media, who SHOULD know better.
Haven’t looked at Staines’s advertising, but a lot of advertising online, if it’s Google Ads, is automatically generated according to keywords selected. I have used that system before, but not on my blog. My blog does not have advertiting links and makes no money. None at all. I am daft enough to do it all out of conviction only.
June 20, 2009 at 1:11 am |
[…] Though in my own defence Your Honour, (we’re all up in front of some judge or other these days, aren’t we?) I do recall saying here in my better moments that we have a cruel tendency in this country to treat politicians as though they are sub-human. […]
June 20, 2009 at 8:51 am |
I suspect that if Gordon Brown is driven from office (Tony Blair walked in my opinion) one of the next couple of PMs will be assassinated.
The culture of abuse and libel is indoctrinating generations of the feeble minded, as well as the jack-the-lads who think blogging is a substitute for football hooliganism.
When the Dully Tele propagandist Pierce can say all the information redacted from the MPs’ expenses report for security reasons at the request of MI5 should be published as a matter of course and go unchallenged by the right wing BBC presenter team we are getting closer to another of the conditions for assassination and a violent coup.
A possible scenario might include: questions about the execution of an election held under some form of partial PR, civil disturbances, suppression which is pilloried in the press, assassination, no-one has a majority in Parliament so the Queen rules in Privy Council, Parliament dissolved, billionaire backed business figure seizes power.
June 20, 2009 at 10:56 am |
Assassinated? Brown’s successors? WHY?
His predecessor will have to watch it for the rest of his life, probably. But if the Tories get in they will have a honeymoon (of about 100 days, and not the two years Blair had.) Cameron will avoid doing anything where he becomes the target that Blair and even Brown now are. The peace’n’lovers are DANGEROUS people, and he knows it.
If it’s another Labour government, there’s a possibility, I suppose. But I don’t think all that likely. It’s still TB most of them are after and always will be until (if) there is closure on Iraq. I can’t see them wanting to do away with Alan Johnson – though Ed Balls? Maybe.
What do you mean Blair “walked”, QZ? He was pushed, for goodness sake! I thought we agreed on that.
I’m not sure about the upcoming violent coup thing either. Speak to most people in the street and although annoyed about the expenses business and the economy, and some of them (not all of them) about Iraq, I don’t think anyone I know is up for THAT. Maybe I just know balanced people.
This is one of the issues online. Many of these people are not balanced or representative, and yet they think they are both and that their opponents are neither.
I couldn’t possibly know, but I’d imagine online political commenting types are no more than 5% of the population. So perhaps we need to keep this in perspective.
June 20, 2009 at 11:04 am |
Had Tony Blair been canonised by the British public and there been no clear alternative he would have stayed a bit longer, but not much. He walked, and could have ignored the screeching etc had he so wished, just as Brown has for the most part, ina more vulnerable position because of the recession.
If the situation I surmise arose most of our friends would say of the claims of whomever was to front up HMG to rule without the Commons: “Democracy let us down, we can give Buggins a go.”
Look at the twisted lies re Iraq and their widespread currency and you may draw my conclusion.
June 20, 2009 at 11:15 am |
From my understanding Blair wanted to stay until 2008, but Brown & cohorts wouldn’t have it. Saying “he walked” is unfair, imho, QZ, and makes it sound as though he didn’t care.
This is what his opponents say – that he knew the recession was coming and got out before it did. That meant that in September 2006, time of the failed coup (by such as the miserable nonentity Tom Watkins, btw) he knew that the recession would descend in the autumn of 2008. Well, if HE knew that, why didn’t the then chancellor?
No, Blair was pushed. I will never accept that he went willingly, QZ, unless he says so himself. And he hasn’t so far.
Remember September 2006 at the school in London, after the “confrontation” with Brown in Number 10:
“I would have preferred to do this in my own way.”
June 20, 2009 at 11:47 am |
I know nothing of such a confrontation at a school. We know there had been such rows before, I see little interest in typing on that fairly dead mater I fear Blair friend.
Blair didn’t predict the international financial crisis, and as Brown acknowledges in your Guardian article, the USA problems with non recursive mortgages and the sold on toxic debt which debilitated confidence in the economic system, particularly the banks, were not in his mind either.
http://snowflake5.blogspot.com/2009/01/problem-of-american-non-recourse.html
June 20, 2009 at 12:05 pm |
No, QZ, the confrontation was in Number 10. Reported at the time as horrendous. Blair’s announcement that “this conference will be my last” was made at the North London school the same day. You MUST remember that.
The reason for typing that was to back up my argument that Blair had been pushed, not to rake up stuff you’d rather leave buried. (We’ve had his kind of discussion before, haven’t we? Whoops!)
So WHY did Blair “walk”, QZ? He was still at the top of his game. Like John Rentoul I thought he got better as he went on.
June 22, 2009 at 6:57 am |
Anyone can have had enough of being catcalled and persecuted. And a young family would have called most others away far earlier.
June 20, 2009 at 8:54 am |
I have already moved from an address to which one of the Dullies and his oppo tracked me, (albeit not primarily for that reason, and to a charming location for an excellent reason!) I doubt I could keep ahead of professionals.
June 20, 2009 at 10:58 am |
Enjoy, QZ.