±«Óătv

Alastair Campbell! Alastair chuffing Campbell! As a commentator! Why??
I hold him and Lord Andrew chuffing Adonis, both UNELECTED, largely responsible for some of the most undemocratic and divisive policy decisions taken during the entire New chuffing Labour project.
Don't let him away without holding him to account.

and doing right for the country is to leave it with unwinnable wars that we will still be fighting 10 years from now?

in terms of strategy how can you confuse 9/11 and taliban with iraq and not resign? easy if you are a neocon who believes in straussian philosophy that there is an inner circle of golden souls who can tell 'noble lies' to do 'what is right'.

Right for whom?
Right for which country?

on 5live there was an interview with a Clinton aide who said contrary to the idea that the uk is the bridge between europe and the usa it was Clinton who had to moderate Tony on Kosovo and that it was Clinton who was the stabiliser of the western alliance when Tony wanted to go off the deep end. When Clinton left the moderating influence was replaced by Bush and his neocons eager to put their straussian experiment into practice. Tony thought he could use them to put his world dreams into action. They used him. Yo Blair.

it is a good idea to xray the last decade of BLAIRS government,there are certain decisions by the regime which were not in the interest of the people govern ,these facts must be presented for the in coming government to check and correct ,the people's voice supercede that of individual.i am a good followership of british govt.the primary duty of any govern is to provide adequate security for the citizenry and not promoting war.even though others are doing this.tonight program i shall listen to.....thanks.
.......kayode adegbile,lagos,nigeria

I am so glad he is going, Mr Blair has been the catalyst for the break-up of the Union, his policies have been more right of centre then the man he replaced (Major), every promise he has made he has broken.

Mr Blair promised to be tough on crime, he failed.

Mr Blair promised to end poverty in Africa, he failed.

Mr Blair promised to remove the spin from Government, he failed.

Mr Blair promised to remove even the hint of coruption from government, he failed.

Mr Blair promised a referendum on Europe, he failed.

Mr Blair promised he would reform the NHS, he failed.

Mr Blair promised so much and delivered so little, the only things that Mr Blair was successful in were:

Increasing the amount of Public sector workers, allowing Brown to steal our pensions, allowing unlimited Immigration, turning a once tolorant country into a Orwellian nightmare.

Mr Blairs legacy?, easy the most dangerous person ever to have held the highest office of our once proud nation.

whilst i agree with all the comments criticising mr blair i have to single out two areas for particular comment

firstly the health service is in a parlous state - i work for it i know - we are underfunded, posts are frozen, we are unable to recruit, drs are going overseas, patients may not wait longer for some things but they sure don't get the service for other things that they did 10 years ago in any other respect.

secondly education is also in a parlous state. to suggest that there are year on year improvements in education is a myth and a disgrace. the children being churned out of schools these days do not do a broadbased curriculum, they do not read anything remotely as challenging in English as I did, they do not do anything as challenging in any subject. there is lots of touchy feely stuff now but little focus on "good, bad or trendy". far too much is bad and trendy and directed by the DfES. teachers are fed up, parents are fed up, children are stressed and then this causes problems in other areas such as CAMHS, Educational Psychology, Behaviour Support Services.

Mr Blair has left this country in a mess and one can only hope that a leader who realises this can come along (not Mr Brown as he has helped create most of it) to work out how to sort out the state we are in.

we will find out if blairs departure was right by who employs him next.george bush will surely put him on his birthday list.

I like what someone said this morning. since Blair came to power: I have had to pay for my univirsity fees and as a result I owe a huge debt, I can no longer buy a house of my own, and I have been burgled twice. Birtain no longer has an independent foreign policy. that is Blair's legacy. I think house prices is a very important national issue for the younger generation of which Blair spoke a lot about being their champion. Hisham Abukalam.

Is it just me or did anyone else notice Blair saying "Britain is the greatest nation on earth" at the end of his farewell speech?

Being a German national and living happily in the UK for over 10 years now, I am shocked by this comment. Can a public figure say something like that and just get away with it? In a country where many foreign nationals live and work; what a silly thing to say. How can any nation be the "greatest nation on earth"? I wish we could get beyond sentiments like this, recognising each individual's and each nation's contribution to the whole and get on with what needs to be done. In public and politics as well as in everyday life.

Dear Tony,

Thank you for allowing housing to become unavailable to the constituency who elected you with high hopes, to their children, and to those who will educate your children, to all in fact who are not the offspring of those to whom you have allowed the south of England to be sold off as a fiefdom for the often foreign city rich whom you have invited to settle on the back of lax commercial laws. Reflect from an armchair in one of your many homes on the fact that a government bent on social justice has made a generation homeless. Your legacy will not be felt fully in a thousand days but it not be forgotten in a generation from now. Bravo New Labour.

No more M.I.R.A.S - increased NI contributions yet the NHS has never been in a worse state - Pensions in crisis - now facing working till I'm 68! With regards to Iraq as Ghandi said 'an eye for an eye will make us blind'

Good luck - we'll need it!!!

I have disagreed with Michael Howard all his policital life, but hats off! His clinical dissection of Alistair Campbell on tonight's Newsnight, and Alistair's complete inability to respond, except by using the black-and-white barracking, headline language of the tabloids, just rammed home Michael's point. Alistair's whole matesey, I'm-a-bloke off-the-street approach seduced Blair, and that's how Blair became Bliar.

Im sick of all the bandwagon haters, look to yourselves if your lives have got so much worse in the last 10years. This debating board simliar to the selceted audiences of newsnight seem to be full of fickle twitching back seat critisers who supported the Iraq war initially but suddenly switched their viewpoint when the media and fashion changed its mind.
The legacy of Tony Blair and new Labour is one that will be remebered not always positively for all the decisions that it made under pressure, but across the board on the majority of factors of issues in Britain the nation remains a happy and powerful one. Regarding issues of such as healthcare and education there is no government that has been more successful and I have yet to see a politian that has managed to impress me more in the last 10yrs. Any doubters please name one??
Point made

Outnumbered by four/five to one and despite the combined best efforts of Campbell, Milburn and Toynbee to drown him out, Michael Howard played his cards admirably.

His summing-up at the end of the programme regarding Campbell's mendacious and sinister influence throughout the Blair years, was masterly in its timing and was absolutely spot on.

So many comments about so many big issues, all to be made in such a small box to comment in, so I shall try to keep from standing on my soap box.

How can you blame Tony Blair for your house being burgled or for a pensioner being mugged? Surely that comes down to the individual(s) and the individual(s) is brought up by those around them and society.

In his time it feels to me that Tony Blair 1st of all seen the problems of the nation through rose tainted glasses. He truly wanted to do the things he set out to do, rather than it being a lie, however I believe that he came to see that this was something that couldn’t be grasped and resolved in whim of few terms. I believe lead to him perhaps being influenced more so by those with a corrupted nature and their own set of agendas which ultimately has tainted him. I base this on the fact that I believe the main thing to come out of Labour, in homeland issues, are economic growth. This has been in my eyes the most efficient goal that Mr Blair has been able to keep to. Which I believe is mainly due to the fact that this is what the real key issues for those who are in wealth are. Those who have excess of money often want do 2 things, 1 – make more and 2 – secure it so it is not lost.

Much of peoples beliefs of what is happening in the UK and abroad is presented through media so the media can contribute to the amount of air time a issue has adding fire or damping out the flames. I do not recall that the amount of effort in the media and by politicians regarding homeland security was as high during the IRA bombings in London as they had in the July 7th bombings why is this?

'I did what i thought was right'
The memorable lines of today, repeatedly orchestrated by Blair as a lasting memory of him and his legacy. The endless political commentators today have spoken of the asset of having a political leader with such strength in his own convictions, such belief.
For me, though, this is the most disturbing aspect of all that he said today. I'm not sure their is a place for such personal justification to be not only at play but central in shaping his policy.
Why is this a vertiable defense? Blair's political language is seaped in this monolithic tone that screams of a british empire colonial zeal; affecting the moral right to intervene to further our own ( Britian's) self interestedness power agenda on the world stage. And how 21st century is that, i ask.
And further, even if the following appears as controversial, Blair's moral defense against his mistakes, completley undermines any shred of positive aspect of the intervention in the middle east after 9/11, that has shaken its delicate power balance to the core. For what above all defines the zeal of religious extremists in committing devastating terrorist acts, or suicide bombers in Israel, it is the courage of their own convictions, and that they can say, that they did what THEY thought was right. Moral polarity is a dangerous ground. I truely ask, who are we to say what is morally right or wrong in such extreme binary positions. Surely if anything, 21st century globalisation shows that there are no demarcated binaries between good and evil, in the kind that Blair and Bush deal in, only shades of relative greys. The failure to see this, is surely Blair's biggest failure in foreign policy and his leadership.

i may have posted already on the wrong page however,i believe most who write these blogs are insanely politicaly correct,war in any event is abhorrent but pacifism is akin to slavery and servitude,would you help a neihbour who was being tortured?if the answer is no then you are a coward and not a worthy person,if the answer is yes!but you withdraw at retaliation you may just as well vote not to bother in the first place,if you help regardless! then you can hold your head high and call yourself british! proud as i am after tony blairs office,i have not felt so patriotic for forty years under mediocre,dull,and unimportant leaders of the past,you all seem happy to be lead by the media into the abysse of folly,anarchy and fear are the stock in trade of the media,"it sells"please do not continue as sheep!,think for youselves!,its not that hard!a merseysider who believes no pm can match tony blair,peter bradshaw

We will all miss tony, but not as much as Rory Bremner.

How on earth can Newsnight justify a panel of 4 Labour Party v. Howard v. Kennedy? It beggared belief and we are due an explanation - Editor please send me one to my email. And we were promised further episodes in great detail in the trailer at the end.

On the night Mrs T resigned did we get a Panel of four Tories and 2 Opposition - I don't think so.

Perhaps you could make amends by devoting a whole Newsnight next week to 4 Tories debating where his Govt went wrong (and, in a very small no. of areas right) over the last ten years. Some hope!

Sounds like an excellent programme tonight. I had meant to watch, problem is I stayed late at work tonight, relying on the 'watch online' facility not to miss the programme.

Silly me, I should never have relied on the ±«Óătv to remember to upload the broadcast before they went home. It's hardly as though they've never forgotten before ... it's what they do!

Still, at least it was only a slow news day.

To continue on with the controversy of comment 19, unfortunately the reasons for why those involved in 9/11 felt it was necessary to take such devastating actions was never really tackled or addressed, such as why do those in the Middle East generally share such a hatred view of the west (if this is a true representation). This is the downfall of many approaches to aspects of government policy and thus treating the humanistic side of the UK more like a business rather than a community, hence why the main issues such as crime and anti social behaviour for a lot of urban areas of the UK don’t get resolved but instead the are tackling with demand. Labours response for crime is to build more prisons or cut sentencing time which the main point is to act as a deterrent or if someone is seen as being anti social they are then slapped with an ASBO. All of this works for a “quick fix” but doesn’t suffice for a real long term resolution. Is it far fetched for me to think that in the future we will either be allowing more and more unreformed criminals to walk the streets due to over crowding or that we will be running out of space to build no prisons so there fore we’ll be creating more prisons at sea? Also is it far fetched to view that so many ASBO’s will be given out that they will not be enforceable and thus ignored much like that of speed limits?

This then loops onto the fact that the key area are the children of tomorrow being educated and bestowed with values and virtues which sets a moral pace and benchmark for each new generation. How does the Labour government tackle this
 by under funding/resource the education sector.

I also would like to comment on the post number 20.

If only life were as simple as being able to answer any problem from a 3 pronged multi choice answer bearing no further consequences. It was decided that the people of Iraq should be liberated from a tyrant however was this asked in a democratic way, no this was the view mainly of the US and UK. Undermining much of what the UN is meant to stand for however shouldn’t it be up to the people of the parties involved in order to resolve matters of their own country and let nature take its course and only intervene when requested, after reviewing the evidence at hand under a board that deals with worldwide issues?

Sir, I do not like Michael Howerd but he was spot on in his blasting of Cambel on Newsnight, talk about squirming embarrassment. Bravo, Michael. I fear for the future as Brown if he had any gravitas about him would have tripped up Blair going down the stairs at num,ber ten or doctored his morning coffee, anything but watch him privatise the NHS, start illegal immoral wars, send our youth into debt for education and flirt with the private sector at the despair of grass root supporters. He watched did nothing so he must agree, and he did sign the cheques for IRAQ so, friends, we are in for a rough ride. What a chance we had, John Smith will be spinning in his grave. Sincerely, Steven Calrow.

I too sat back and remembered the Blair Years and all that kept coming to mind was the farcical Hutton Report and Alastair Campbells outburst on T.V. that will stick in my mind forever. Well done Michael Howard for telling it as we the public see it, Alistair Campbell deserved that and more

What is most disturbing about the Blair years, just as it was in the Thatcher years, is that he and his fellow cabinet members and their staff actually seem to beleive what they say. We all know politicians lie, say anything to get elected or even just to get on 10 o'clock news or the front pages; but we have always known they know they are doing it.

Last nights programme was yet another example of the ±«Óătv using my TV tax to market the socialists. Out of all the panellists only Michael Howard was a conservative the rest were left wingers.

I trust there will be another programme where the balance will be reversed

New Labour's 'Third Way' policies had high face validity for the naive
but they just compounded the profound mismanagement of this country which has been with us for decades.

Sadly most of what's been said in this blog continues to avoid facing up to the fact that there is an elephant in the room - and that's the demographic transition, it's consequences and its political
mismanagement (or cynical short term exploitation at the expense of the
longer term interests of the country). This goes way back, New Labour just failed to arrest it.

What we've seen and heard discussed both here and on Newsnight last
night just amounts to reporting on the consequences of this mismanagement, i.e futile debate amounting to quibbling over alternative deck-chair management strategies. Looking instead to the driver of all of this, New Labour's policies have just made matters far worse and the full effects (though palpable now in schools and communities) will show even more after New Labour has long gone given that these forces take time to exert their full impact.

See: #8, #9 and #13 and the points towards the end of the link in #9 for an elaboration/explication.

/blogs/newsnight/2007/05/wednesday_9_may_2007.html

The answer was never "education, education, education". In fact, that's been as good part of the driving problem! The answer was better population and behaviour management. That requires sound government, but what we've been given is further anarchism peddled as the expansion of the free-market.

Incidentally, it was Michael Howard's remarks on his being advised that he couldn't do anything about the rise in crime, and that he could only 'manage public expectations' (Newsnight spring last year) which prompted my suggestion in #8.

I'm sure anyone interested can follow the links (especially off #9), and I look forward to reading others' views.

Three cheers for Michael Howard for naming Alastair Campbell as a bully and a liar!

Three cheers to Charles Kennedy for nailing Alastair Campbell on moving the goal posts over Iraq!

Three cheers to David Hare for pointing out that a lot of people thought what Blair did wasn't right and told him so before he did it!

Three cheers to Polly Toynbee for pointing out how the Iraq war doomed Afghanistan to failure!

Those moments towards the end when Michael Howard directly addressed Alistair Campbell were just electric.

Never thought, I would ever become fan of Mr Howard- but in the end it took the man with 'something of the night about him' to tell the spindoctor some home truths. How I relished that sequence- the man who wagged his finger and thumped Jon Snow's desk about aspersions on his character, being nonplussed by someone calling him a liar in the most reasonable of tones.

Probably because of the late hour, that clip hasn't been widely reported. Please show it again and again..... it is a classic on par with Paxman's famous 19 (or was it more) repetitions of the same question to Michael Howard.

New Labour's 'Third Way' policies had high face validity for the naive
but they just compounded the profound mismanagement of this country which has been with us for decades, and growing.

Sadly most of what's been said in this blog continues to avoid facing up to the fact that there is an elephant in the room - and that's the demographic transition, it's consequences and its political
mismanagement (or cynical short term exploitation at the expense of the
longer term interests of the country). This goes way back, New Labour just failed to arrest it.

What we've seen and heard discussed both here and on Newsnight last
night just amounts to reporting on the consequences of this mismanagement, i.e futile debate amounting to quibbling over alternative deck-chair management strategies. Looking instead to the driver of all of this, New Labour's policies have just made matters far worse and the full effects (though palpable now in schools and communities) will show even more after New Labour has long gone given that these forces take time to exert their full impact.

See: #8, #9 and #13 and the points towards the end of the link in #9 for an elaboration/explication.

/blogs/newsnight/2007/05/wednesday_9_may_2007.html

The answer was never "education, education, education". In fact, that's been a good part of the driving problem! The answer was better population and behaviour management. That requires sound government, but what we've been given is further anarchism peddled as the expansion of the free-market. The model for what would have worked has been developed and piloted in the past, in the bowels of our Criminal Justice System. Sadly, the lessons were not learned, they were misappropriated, distorted as NOMS, and squandered. Will Lord Carter's imminent review will put it back on the rails? I guess we will have to wait and see, but as I see it, we have just lost another 10 years.

(Incidentally, it was Michael Howard's egregious remarks on his being advised that he couldn't do anything about the rise in crime, and that he could only 'manage public 'expectations' (Newsnight spring last year) which prompted my suggestion in #8 of the first link above).

I'm sure anyone interested can follow the required links. I look forward to reading others' views, but most of all, I look forward to seeing someone do something about all of this. What they need to do has all been said before.

Mr Brown, are you really listening and prepared to learn?

How could last night's panel invited to discuss Blair's record in government possibly be considered balanced? It comprised Blair's former director of communications, a disaffected left-wing playwright, a Blairite former cabinet minister, a former leader of the Lib Dems,a prominent left-wing journalist and a former leader of the Conservative party. The ±«Óătv treats the latter as if it were some fringe party which was responsible for a dark age from which the country emerged in 1997. The discussion was chaired by a presenter whose contempt for the Conservative party has been evident for years. The whole thrust of the coverage of the recent elections was to minimize and even belittle Conservative gains in English council elections. The masterstroke of the evening was a graphic predicting that both Labour and Conservatives would increase their percentage share of the vote by 1% implying that they were both doing equally well on the night. I lost count of the number of times we were told that the Tories had no councillors in Manchester but there was no attempt to identify the councils for which there were not even any Labour candidates standing for election (including my own). So much attention was focused on Edinburgh and Cardiff and the fate of the Labour party there, it was easy to forget that these devolved administrations represent a mere 15% of the total population of the UK. As for the antics of Jeremy Vine, they reduced political analysis and comment to a new level of puerility.

So, all six "top drawer" (Paxman's description Newsnight Wednesday 9 May 2007) guests think it is acceptable to wage agressive war on a sovereign state, Iraq, and Jeremy Paxman does not seek to correct them (or does not know?). No WMD, which was the UK's alleged justification for waging war, but, since there were no WMD, it was a just war anyway because we did not like Saddam Hussein. The Geneva Conventions, which resulted from the Nuremberg Trials, clearly state that aggressive war on a sovereign state ("regime change") is "the supreme war crime". Tony Blair (and Goldsmith, Hoon, Straw and others) is a war criminal - that is his real "legacy" - there can be no "ifs" and "buts". Blair took the UK to illegal war (he knew he could not get UN Security Council approval) on Goldsmith's highly questionable legal advice (twice changed, and the Cabinet did NOT even see a summary of the 7 March 2003 legal advice as claimed - they saw the 17 March 2003 Parliamentary Answer, from which all the caveats had been removed, and which resulted from Goldsmith's verbally expressed view to Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan on 13 March 2003 at an unminuted meeting?! at 10 Downing Street - highly likely that Goldsmith did not even write it, though he later - 2005 - claimed that he had) on a pack of lies, and 1 million excess deaths in Iraq since 2003 have resulted. In addition, Gilligan had four sources (for his infamous report), and it is highly probable that David Kelly was not even the principal source, never mind the only source as Martha Kearney misleads viewers into believing (see transcript of Gilligan's and Kelly's evidence to the FAC, and the FAC report of 16 July 2003). So, the "top drawer" guests did not know very much did they, or if they did, they kept quiet? Very disappointing, Newsnight and Jeremy Paxman.

A thoroughly good newsnight ensemble.
Michael Howard's exchange was rivetting,but I think was balanced by the labourman's assertion that the Tories had always been over represented in the news media and been more professional in their newsmanagement. Polly Toynbee also countered by saying all the media moguls were Tory and labour mostly got a bad press.Michael Howard even agreed that the Tory's have always had a spin doctor.There however is some truth that Blair had a faustian pact with Cambell and allowed the Labour government to become corrupted by the same sleaze that had infected the Tories and to spin his government away from true parliamentary democracy,and be the first PM to answer police questions about cash-for-honours.We have to remember the influence of the unelected people Blair surrounded himself by who had a say in the practise of goverment.Gordon Brown can distance himself from spin,unparliamentary democracy,lack of cabinet discussion,Iraq,USA foreign policy,the growing divide between rich and poor,listening more to a disenfranchised electorate and getting closer to our European neighbours.

I wonder why none of the panellists in yesterday’s edition of Newsnight were REALLY prepared to question the honesty of Tony Blair’s motives in taking Britain to war in Iraq? Why nobody was prepared to REALLY mention the misleading dossier and the blatant lying to Parliament? Why the report glossed over the injustice perpetrated on the ±«Óătv by the Hutton inquiry?
My hopes were on David Hare to show courage and speak for liberal Britain, but he turned out to be just a “Harlod Pinter-Light”, appeasing and spineless.
Tony Blair was depicted as a secular saint who, even when misleading the nation, was always brimming with good intentions. Why?
I tell you why: because with the Hutton inquiry Tony Blair managed —in another of his devastating blows to Britain’s traditions of freedom— to emasculate the ±«Óătv. A diluted Newsnight like yesterdays could never have been made before that accursed “inquiry”.

Hurrah Jeremy is 50 today ...
Lots of love
The Krankies

Thursday nights can be a difficult nights viewing for political and current affair watchers like myself, when you consider Question time clashes with newsnight. My video and DVD recorder was working overtime because channel 4 are doing a week of comedy and i spent more time juggling remotes than actually watching the box and lets not forget the Andrew Neil show with abbot and costello.

When i finally got around to watching this extended newsnight, did it really warrent a full analysis of Tonys premiership? er yes. The cresendo like build-up to Tonys finally departure date was like nothing the media or the rest of us have had to endure for quite sometime, "gordon, you can put the knifes back in the draw, tone's going to see the queen".

Micheal howard may have been the only Tory on this newsnight special but Kennedy and toynbee found common ground with howard's thoughts on 10 years of Blairism. Micheal Howard is not a man i can warm to easily but his measured and qualified comments, especially him questioning the spin that was produced by this labour govt, thanks to Alister Campbell, was a moment to treasure.
I will never forget, or will many others forget the manner in which Campbell operated as the master of spin; Andrew Gilligan and the subsequent uproar, shouted loudest by Campbell, the kicking of the ±«Óătv, the suicide of a scientist and the war in Iraq.

Today i have found it almost impossible to write a joke.

Thank you to Peter Barron (26) for his reply to my complaint at 22, but his explanation is totally inadequate.

Hare and Toynbee only attacked Blair on (part of) his foreign policy, which was only one third of the programme. Predictably, they supported him on the other two parts.

Also you cannot equate the dissident left with the major Opposition political party (which polled 13% more than the Labour Party only last week). By doing this, you are somehow implying that New Labour is in the middle, with equally balanced forces either side of him. Where is the party to the "left" of him with 35% to 40% of the popolar vote?

Although 3/1/1 would have been bad enough, it is clear you were conned by Campbell by him saying he was going to go, and then staying. You think that was accidental? Ho, Ho. Admittedly the last laugh was on him with the widely praised Howard attack but that theatre in no way made up for the rest of the programme when Howard was often being shouted down by 2 or 3 Labour Party supporters with no intervention from Paxman.

I think you owe us a panel of 3 Tories assessing Blair and Brown next week, don't you?

I used to respect Newsnight but the number of instances of bias multiplies weekly. We know the left-leaning politics of Paxman and Crick (both of whom are good journalists but it is clear where their sympathies are). Please tell us who are the rightward leaning people with any input into the programme now to balance them?

Further to post #39, the "accursed inquiry" of which M. Bonnett speaks, the Hutton Inquiry, posed (thank you Lord Falconer) as an inquest into David Kelly's death. It was no such thing. Not many people know this, but it is true: Hutton could not, and did not, hear evidence under oath - he had no statutory powers - his was an ad hoc judicial inquiry, not governed by the provisions of the 1921 Public Inquiries Act (itself quietly repealed in 2005, and replaced by the odious Inquiries Act 2005 - thank you again Lord Falconer), but the public were deliberately misled into believing that Hutton possessed greater powers than a coroner at an inquest, when the exact reverse was the case. Hutton did not possess the powers to prove anything, let alone suicide. Proving suicide is notoriously difficult, in the absence of a suicide note. In order to return a verdict of suicide, suicide (including "intent" to commit suicide) must be proved to a criminal level of proof, that is, beyond reasonable doubt. In the case of David Kelly, whose death was undeniably inextricably linked to the UK's reasons for going to war with Iraq, suicide was not proved and thus due process of law was subverted - Kelly was denied an inquest, with the connivance of Lord Hutton and the Oxfordshire Coroner, Nicholas Gardiner. A proper inquest would have landed Blair et al. in a coroner's court, giving evidence under oath before a jury, and being subjected to vigorous cross examination. That was the real reason why Lord Hutton was asked by Lord Falconer to conduct an inquiry into Kelly's death, on the very day that Kelly's body was allegedly found. And, worse still, of course, it was very probably not suicide, but that is a matter for a proper coroner's inquest (required by English and European law in suspicious deaths).

Stephen Frost seems to be casting aspersions on our honours system."Honour" speaks for itself, so how can he question the integrity of Lord Falconer, Lord Goldsmith & Lord Hutton. Next thing, he'll be casting shadows on the likes of Lord Butler, Lord Archer & Lord Levy.Preposterous.

An excellent programme, balanced, fair and interesting. Campbell v. Howard was interesting, with Campbell knocking him out in a single round! Also a good discussion with Jeremy Paxman asking all the questions I wanted asked.

Its 10.22pm by British Summer Time and the "Tony's Resignation" edition of Newsnight is still not up on the Web, at least not in the ±«Óătv News Player (Real Player) Broadband version my machine expects. It is still the previous night's programme featuring Leeds that runs. So I guess it never will be.

So I cannot comment on the Newsnight edition, but I did take advantage of the broadband streaming of live ±«Óătv coverage of the PM's resignation address in his constituency. I was astonished by his line, in his list of changes he claimed his governance had seen come to pass, "Equality for gay people", which drew no applause from the Trimdon Labour Club audience.

This from the man who insisted, due to his (and other MPs') religious beliefs, that marriage could not be opened up equally to any extra couples, and required that those married abroad in such respected countries as Canada, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium who didn't match the supposedly "traditional" rules must be demoted to "civil partners" (a status with no religious, romantic, or sexual connotations, not recognised internationally, and not seen as the same as marriage anywhere) when in the UK. Then, punitively took the entire assets of a lesbian couple who went to court asking that their Canadian marriage be accepted here as a marriage by having the government's lawyers demand full costs from them when the court ruled, astoundingly, but at the urging of the government's lawyers, that it was too soon to challenge the law, and that marriage was traditionally only open to heterosexual couples (showing very clearly that British courts do not provide human rights where tradition conflicts).

Separate is never equal, but what the PM has given lesbian and gay people is very clearly far from equality, and deliberately so, for reason of his belief in what is "right", that he emphasised so strongly elsewhere in his address. That modern endorsement of inferiority, or discrimination, then further validates the violence, the brutality and scorn we suffer from the unthinking though life. Many of us are now in despair that equality and respect will ever be ours in the UK. Those to whom it is important, and have an avenue, are leaving the country. Which makes the PM's final assertion, that this is the greatest nation on earth, even more shocking.

Maybe, if one takes the most charitable view possible, the PM's problem has been exactly as claimed in his address - that he switched, once in office, to following his convictions rather than being open to the evidence. And those convictions were fairly narrowly christian and middle-class, and failed to match the country's, and the world's needs, or many people's reasonable expectations.

In a country where it has not "been done" in the last decades, and where now it might seem to have become illegal to question a candidate's beliefs in advance, it might seem impossible to guard against the same betrayal happening again. Indeed, we seem to in for more of the same from the PM's designated successor, from what little we know of his beliefs and background.

It might be the PM's worse legacy that Labour's origins in 19th century "muscular christianity", having been allowed to over-ride so much else in a 21st century government, may now be a permanent reason for it to distrusted and despised in a nation of great variety of belief (and increasingly a rejection of it) and where our tradition of "fair play" now exposes such religious teachings as weirdly unthinking and bigoted.

It has, after all, been those times when the PM has stood on the world stage and asked for trust for decisions he claims he has made on the basis of conviction and belief, usually with the same embarrassed grin on his face as you would expect in a small boy "explaining" having copied actions of his peers without thinking, or just parroting what his parents or his priest has told him, when the PM has always come over as insanely untrustworthy.

BlairSupporter

Your comment reads like blind love.

Published on Monday, March 10, 2003 by the Guardian/UK

A Supreme International Crime

Any Member of a Government Backing an Aggressive War Will Be Open to Prosecution

by Mark Littman

The threatened war against Iraq will be a breach of the United Nations Charter and hence of international law unless it is authorized by a new and unambiguous resolution of the security council. The Charter is clear. No such war is permitted unless it is in self-defense or authorized by the security council.

Self-defense has no application here. Neither the United States nor the UK, nor any of their allies, is under attack or any threat of immediate attack by Iraq.

Nor is there any authority from the security council. Resolution 1441 does not constitute any such authority as the reference to "serious consequences" is not sufficiently precise to justify war. Whatever the US may have wanted, the resolution was deliberately vague because the council had not agreed on the use of force. A new resolution would therefore be required. It would have to be in unambiguous terms authorizing the use of force.

In the absence of such a resolution, the attack would, be unlawful. On this point I agree completely with the terms of the letter from 16 eminent international lawyers to 10 Downing Street published in last Friday's Guardian.

What would be the consequences of such illegality? Most obvious would be the human, economic and environmental costs, including any further violence that a war against Iraq might trigger. An illustration of how unpredictable and incalculable such costs might be is furnished by a recollection of the events of 1914. When the Hapsburg empire attacked the Serbs, the campaign was expected to be short because of the immense military superiority of Austria/Hungary over the Kingdom of Serbia. Four years later, the Hapsburg empire, together with those of Germany and Russia, lay in ruins. A residue of bitterness and hatred was left that bred an even worse war 20 years later in which there were more than 50 million fatalities. Who can say with certainty where today's threatened war might lead?

A second consequence would be of immense world significance, for it would mean the end of the United Nations and with it the final collapse of the efforts of the past century to create effective international institutions that would replace perpetual war with perpetual peace.

If attempts to create such international institutions were abandoned, the clock would be turned back to a time when nations had to depend for their security on the uncertain and shifting patterns of alliances and their own military defenses. This would inevitably lead to more being spent on swords and less on ploughshares.

A third consequence might be grave for members of the governments that brought about this unlawful war. The United Nations Charter is a treaty, one to which 192 out of a total of 196 sovereign states in the world are parties. It takes precedence over all other treaties.

At the Nuremberg trials, the principles of international law identified by the tribunal and subsequently accepted unanimously by the General Assembly of the United Nations included that the planning, preparation or initiation of a war contrary to the terms of an international treaty was "a crime against peace". The tribunal further stated "that to initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime".

It was for this crime that the German foreign minister Von Ribbentrop was tried, convicted and hanged. This case and the subsequent case of former Chilean president Pinochet show that it is not only governments but also individuals who can be held responsible for such a crime. Jurisdiction to try such a crime is not, for the foreseeable future, within the scope of the new International Criminal Court. It is, however, open to any country in the world to accept such jurisdiction. Some are already moving in that direction. Instances are the proceedings in the Belgian courts against Ariel Sharon in relation to alleged crimes in the Lebanon, and the active involvement of the courts of Spain in relation to alleged crimes against humanity said to have been committed by Pinochet. Members of any governments actively involved in bringing about an unlawful war against Iraq would be well advised to be cautious as to the countries they visit during the remainder of their lives.

In a remarkable statement to the US Senate on February 12, Senator Robert Byrd (West Virginia) described the US position. He referred to it as the "extremely destabilizing and dangerous foreign policy debacle that the world is currently witnessing" and said: "Our challenge is to now find a graceful way out of a box of our own making." A refusal by the security council to authorize hostilities should provide a graceful way out of the box. Our government could lead the way.

Mark Littman QC is author of Kosovo: War and Diplomacy (Center for Policy Studies). He has written and lectured extensively on international law. admin@littmanchambers.com

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

I wrote: "Its 10.22pm by British Summer Time and the 'Tony's Resignation' edition of Newsnight is still not up on the Web, at least not in the ±«Óătv News Player (Real Player) Broadband version my machine expects. It is still the previous night's programme featuring Leeds that runs. So I guess it never will be."

And Ian Lacey (Newsnight web producer) thoughtfully replied: "Jenny - there was a brief problem with the programme but it was fixed so I'm not sure why you were getting a problem - sorry you could not watch it when you wanted to. The whole Blair special programme can be seen using this link - - or by clicking the 'Newsnight special' link on the Tony Blair banner currently on the front page of the Newsnight website."

Thank you for making it available in that way. I shall view it now. The problem seems to have been (there being no problem with the Friday edition) that you used a different url for that edition, one that did not work from the "View Latest Edition" link I have bookmarked in Real Player and appears in Newsnight's page on the ±«Óătv News Player. Perhaps this was because you already intended to make it available for a longer period, but it was frustrating. Interestingly the link continued to play the previous edition. Perhaps you could bear in mind that some of us who only watch the programme via the Web may not bother to go through the steps from the programme's home page, but have it bookmarked in that manner. I assumed it had not been put up because in the past that has been the problem - as the ±«Óătv Duty Office has confirmed for me on past occasions - and, after reporting it to them just kept trying again.

Would it not be possible, since this time you had two editions available at once, if one knew the urls, to always have editions available for a few more days? Then there would be some point in telling friends that an edition contained something they should watch, and passing them the url?

BlairWatcher

No, I am not out for "a good hanging" - I have always opposed capital punishment, in all circumstances - no exceptions - I did so in the case of Saddam Hussein, but the evil was compounded in that case by the fact that the illegally occupying forces didn't even give him a fair trial, and, at his execution, he was subjected to taunting. What a disgrace?! What hypocrisy?! And, according to the Geneva Conventions, Blair et al. were responsible, because "the supreme war crime" - agressive war against a sovereign state - enables all the ensuing crimes.

BlairSupporter

No, I am not out for "a good hanging" - I have always opposed capital punishment, in all circumstances - no exceptions - I did so in the case of Saddam Hussein, but the evil was compounded in that case by the fact that the illegally occupying forces didn't even give him a fair trial, and, at his execution, he was subjected to taunting. What a disgrace?! What hypocrisy?! And, according to the Geneva Conventions, Blair et al. were responsible, because "the supreme war crime" - agressive war against a sovereign state - enables all the ensuing crimes.

what I find amazing about this thread is the comments that the ±«Óătv chooses to publish at the top of the list - anti-blair, anti-iraq war. How depressingly predictable