Rescuing Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected Dictatorship

Spin, not face-to-face confrontations with the voters, is the Government's chosen method of communication. Ordinary people are dangerous. Ordinary people might ask a question which throws a politician 'off message'; the Cabinet member might reveal himself or herself to be a human being like us, and not a programmed android. Worse still, he or she might tell the truth. Ann Leslie - Daily Mail, September 16, 2004

 

WWW silentmajorityspeaks.com

 Front Page headline in the Daily Mail, July 15, 2004

Billions SPENT+scores of British soldiers KILLED+a nation PULVERISED+11,500 civilians DEAD+no WMD+disgracefully FLAWED intelligence+that 45 minute claim WAS bogus+that dossier WAS sexed-up+spymasters DID cosy up to No 10+ Parliament and the British people WERE misled+but Lord Butler concludes:

NO ONE'S TO BLAME

Quentin Letts witnesses a shameless performance by Labour

This felt more dangerous than Hutton. After that inquiry Tony Blair was indignant for his reputation and pretty obviously relieved by the 'all clear'. Yesterday, amid chill silence in the Chamber, he was at first defensive, anxious.

A local anaesthetic, nurse. The Prime Minister's soft underpinnings, exposed to full view, were neatly, surgically knifed open by Michael Howard. Mr Blair was conscious throughout the operation.

As so often happens with this Prime Minister, he felt no pain. Nor even, apparently, any shame. Instead, at exactly 1.59 pm, just after Mr Howard's skilled, silken analysis, Mr Blair laughed. Moments later a gang of ministerial thugs followed suit. They joked and clapped one another on the back.

Voters and soldiers and most of all, mothers, you maybe thought yesterday an occasion for doleful apology, introspection, regret. But the man Blair laughed and his lackeys gloated in the wings. Had they perhaps misread the devastating verdicts which lay behind Lord Butler's mandarin euphemisms?

The Prime MInister came to the Commons at 1.30 pm, shortly after Lord B's colonel-barks-at- the-troops press conference. That performance was filmed by the international network news stations and may have given the impression around the globe that Britain is still a country run by long-necked public school types who speak down to the masses. Not too inaccurate then.

The moment Mr Blair started speaking a full House quietened. A momentary murmur from the Conservative benches was quickly stopped by Speaker Martin. "I won't tolerate any interference," said Speaker Mick. What a pity John Scarlett did not take the same stern attitude to his work.

Mr Blair's speech was highly technical. The more he descended into detail, the more one felt he was trying to construct a false barricade. And then he accepted that there had never been any stockpiles. Stunning. One of the three or four most memorable moments I have known in this old House.

Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong, fingered her lips. On the Tory front bench pro-war Nicholas Soames watched the PM with his many chins lowered, his eyes raised. That irritating twit, Ben Bradshaw, junior minister for paper clips, showed off in an upstairs gallery by saying 'hear hear' as often and as loudly as he could to Mr Blair.

God, Howard was lethal. He repeatedly used a construction which involved the words 'I repeat'. Really, really edgy, made all the more so by the quiet, scientific way it was put. Not a mog barked, barely a bitch growled. Or at least not until Ann Taylor (Lab, Dewsbury) started to chuck insults at Mr Howard.

Ann Taylor? Yes, the same Ann Taylor who was Lord Butler's sidekick on the inquiry. How amazing - yet utterly unsurprising - that this most unsatisfactory, partisan Privy Counsellor should behave in such a way.

The Speaker, who had a great afternoon, admonished her and another senior Labour MP.

Mr Blair, replying to Mr Howard, wrapped one foot inside the other, leaned far over the despatch box and bendily squirmed, pointing with anger. He produced some slippery line of argument stolen from a speech Mr Howard gave to Rupert Murdoch's news honchos recently.

It was a this moment Mr Blair laughed - a dry, self-satisfied laugh. Moments later I saw ministers Charles Clarke, Paul Boateng, Adam Ingram and Bridget Prentice chortle behind the scenes. Labour loyalists rewarded Mr Blair with cheers but they were not so pleased when Kenneth Clark (Con, Rushcliffe) and Robin Cook (Lab. Livingstone) pur further devastating questions.

"I know there will be people in the country who disagree with me," simpered Mr Blair. "Yeah," snorted Scots Nationalist Alex Salmon. "Three quarters of the country!"

That figure, I fear, will only grow after yesterday's vile little display from evader Blair.

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We'll never be told the truth on Iraq

by Peter McKay. Daily Mail July 5, 2004

Prior to seeing Lord Hutton's report on the Dodgy Dossier Affair, we were told the learned judge - a very independent fellow, it was said - would come down hard on No 10 officials and the BBC. No one would be spared.

What a joke! Remember our surprise when, after whitewashing the Government completely, 'independent' Hutton tore into the broadcasters so savagely that the BBC's chairman Gavin Davies, and director-general, Greg Dyke, had to resign?

Now we are told Lord Butler's inquiry into the 'intelligence services' role in supporting the Iraq War will be 'unsparing' in its criticism of the politicians and the spies. Will he really? Surely another whitewash is in the offing.

First, the Prime MInister only conceded this inquiry because a similar one had been set up in America. He sough to limit its scope by saying: "We do not need, in my view, an inquiry into the political decision to go to war. That's a matter for Parliament, government and the country in the end, but it's important we learn the intelligence lessons."

The author of the dodgy dossier, slippery John Scarlett, has now been appointed head of MI6. Would he have been promoted if the Government believed there was a serious prospect of him being slammed so severely by Butler that he'd have to stand down?

Even if Lord Butler exceeds his brief and, say, criticises how the Prime Minister used bogus intelligence to argue the case for war against Iraq, Mr Blair can dismiss his report by saying others have come to a different conclusion. There can't be much doubt in the minds of most honourable people - even those who support them on other issues - that Mr Blair's Government misled us deliberately about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Governments mislead us deliberately all the time, over domestic and foreign issues. They believe they're doing it for our own good. Sometime's it's for their own good. We accept they have done it, are doing it, will do it.

Maybe Mr Blair thought it was right to mislead us over Saddam Hussein because opposing George W Bush's Iraq invasion plans and fracturing our alliance with America would be worse in the long run. It was easy for Mr Blair to trundle out untruths about Saddam because he had the full support of the Tories. They too, were in thrall to Mr Bush and the 'special relationship'.

That's why there was hysterical anger from Mr Blair's chief propagandist, Alastair Campbell, when the BBC began chipping away at the dodgy dossier affair on Radio 4's Today show. The Tories had been squared. So had the Murdoch Press. How dare the BBC proclaim its independence. Mr Blair was right to say when he set up the Butler inquiry, that the political decision to go to war is in the end a matter for the country. He will never tell us the truth. We have to decide at the ballot box if they were right or wrong.

If, by election time, Iraq has quietened down, with a more or less legitimate government in power, he knows he'll be forgiven, even by voters who think he lied. If Iraq has descended into a bloody, full-scale civil war, he'll have a strategy in place to prevent the lies told to justify the invasion ending his career.

Lord Butler's inquiry is a mere sideshow, a process designed to cover the Government's backside, run by a former civil service mandarin who knows how far he can go. The unspoken factor is public cynicism. When we decide they're all lying, the untruths of a prime minister become less career-threatening. We poor boobies are forced to choose between one let of liars and the other.

The blood on your hands won't come off, Mr Blair!