Fitaloon at MicroShaft

This story from Patrick Wintour in the Guardian would be a hoot if it wasn’t for the fact that we are talking about our Prime Minster Gordon Brown. Quoting from Andrew Rawnsley’s book we have the following:

The book says Brown demanded:

“Who do you think is better than me? Do you think there is anyone who is better than me?”

John Reid was “far too rightwing”. Alan Johnson was “a lightweight”. David ­Miliband was much too young. Was Blair saying, Brown demanded, that any of them was better qualified to become prime minister?

This face-off came to an end without a resolution. Talking about it afterwards to close allies, Blair described this confrontation with Brown as “ghastly” and “terrible” and told them:

“He [Brown] kept shouting at me that I’d ruined his life.“

We then have Rawnsley revealing that Brown rang Blair while he was staying with the Queen at ­Balmoral. He was furious that Alan ­Milburn, Blair’s close ally, had written a piece supporting the prime minister’s right to stay at No 10. Rawnsley writes:

The chancellor’s fury was titanically demented even by his standards.

‘You put fucking Milburn up to it,‘

Brown raged down the phone.

‘This is factionalism! This is Trotskyism! It’s fucking Trotskyism!‘

Blair was nonplussed. He had not even seen the article. After the call, he then read it and phoned Milburn to say it was excellent. They laughed about Brown’s hysterical reaction.”

Drawing on witness accounts from within No 10 and the Treasury, Rawnsley also discloses that Balls, in effect, forced Brown into pressing on with the coup. At one meeting at the Treasury, Brown said he needed more time to think, but Balls interrupted:

“It’s too late. It’s all in place. It is going to happen.”

Balls was referring to the fact that Tom Watson, then defence minister, was about to hand in a letter of resignation from the government that called for Blair to quit.

Jesus, I keep wondering how bad this can get and each time it is worse than I imagined. This man is Unfit for Office.

Gordon Brown shouted ‘you ruined my life’ at Tony Blair | Politics | guardian.co.uk.

Bonkers Brown and Blair

According to the Evening Standard the deluded Prime Minister Gordon Brown has confirmed that Mr Blair would appear on the campaign trail in the bid for an historic fourth term. I assume the photo above shows Blair out-of-focus deliberately.

Mr Brown, who has previously refused to be drawn on the issue, made clear that his predecessor and other former “big beasts” in Labour cabinets would be brought back as a powerful reminder of New Labour’s successes.

If he thinks this will help I would suggest he it totally deluded, all it will do is highlight Blair’s role in Iraq and the tensions in the Labour Party. A definite win-win for David Cameron.

By the way I implore you to ignore the puff piece linked in the article. It will induce you to lose your last meal and then the whole weeks food before that. Don’t say you haven’t been warned

Tony Blair handed key Labour election role to win floating voters | News.

Not reported much apart from little snippets, is this nugget from the newspaper El Mundo in Spain.  The article looks to be subscription only so here is what the People had to say.

Tony Blair has blamed weak political leadership for the war in Afghanistan being unpopular. The ex-PM claimed more people would support military action if they understood the threat posed by Islamic extremism.  His apparent swipe at Gordon Brown came after he was asked why so many Brits opposed sending troops. He replied:

“Because what is needed is a very strong political leadership which knows how to explain to people the danger. We are not at war with the people of a country. We are fighting with them for liberation.  The Taliban are still there.  If we do not defeat them, they will again become as powerful as they were before September 11.”

Mr Blair hit out in an interview with Spanish newspaper El Mundo, which he gave last year but has only just been published following his appearance at the Chilcot Inquiry.He said Britain should be prepared to fight terrorism wherever it appeared, denying Afghanistan could become a new Vietnam.

I don’t normally agree with Tony Blair, but this is one exception and I also believe that this time he is telling the truth.

Time for Change.

People.co.uk – BLAST AT ‘WEAK’ PM.

Liar?

I asked on Friday if Blair was  Slick, self-Righteous or Sincere, well according to the Mail on Sunday 8 out of 10 people think he is just a plain Liar.

More details below:

BPIX poll results

Chilcot war Inquiry: We STILL think Blair lied, say 8 out of 10 | Mail Online.

I was struck by one paragraph from this article in the Guardian on the Blair show at the Chilcot Inquiry. It is from Haifa Zangana a novelist and former prisoner of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime

This inquiry can only be meaningful if it leads to the re-establishment of justice and international law. Without that we can only imagine what the growing orphans will do to Iraq and the world in a few years. A humanitarian worker, quoted in the latest Red Cross report, said: “Once I was called to an explosion site. There I saw a four-year-old boy sitting beside his mother’s body, decapitated by the explosion. He was talking to her, asking her what had happened.” He will be asking the living too. Current UN estimates are of 5 million Iraqi orphans, holding the UK and the US responsible. It is up to the British people who had twice democratically elected Blair and co to make amends to the victims, to hold their government responsible for the damage to Iraq and to the world.

The article is a good review of the Blair Show from a number of viewpoints.

Time for Change.

How Tony Blair fared at the Chilcot inquiry | UK news | guardian.co.uk.