Day 1: Higher Education Bill - Gov't Victory
Day 2: Hutton Report - Gov't Victory
And it bloody well snowed, I couldn't be more smiley!
The Hutton Report was just debated in parliament, Mr. Blair recounted the entirety of the conclusions relating to his clearance from any "underhand" or unscrupulous activity and called for a withdrawal from Michael Howard. What he got was nothing more than a vindictive verbal thrashing-around of a man who's new year political strategy is in its death throws.
After Michael Howard had finished his own laughable 'Howard Report', Blair articulated in the calmest of terms a conclusion that I myself reached watching Mr. Howard's speech from the dispatch box. I paraphrase it here as best I can remember it so I'll have to go and find a transcript somewhere:
"I - well I was going to say I expected but I know I should not, I would have liked the right honorable gentleman to make a dignified retraction in light of the conclusions found in this report however he has shown himself incapable of such an act"
"The right honorable gentleman yesterday faced a challenge of policy and failed. Today he faced a challenge of character and he has failed that too."
Blair finished with a brilliant couplet which I recall with considerably more clarity:
"He has shown that nastiness is not effectiveness
That opportunism is not Leadership"
I was disgusted watching Mr. Howard's reply. Iain Duncan Smith in such a position would have been enough of a gentleman to admit that his assertions of 'lying' to the house were entirely unfounded and utterly blasted by the Hutton Report. No such withdrawal came from the 'leader' of the opposition. What benefit of the doubt I had leant him as the incumbent Tory leader has been shredded.
He was an utterly unpleasant politician when he was home secretary and he is an utterly unpleasant politician now. He chose opportunism over the good of the country on the Higher Education Bill, when public opinion was swung entirely behind the measures and the majority of commentators saw they were intelligent and today he is like a petulant child who refuses to admit culpability in light of evidence no one can ignore.
The assertions played out in the media throughout the entirety of the last year following Andrew Gilligan's story; that the prime minister lied; that he lied to the house; that he lied to the people and that he played a key role in outing Doctor Kelly have been utterly and irrefutably disproved by an impartial judicial inquiry.
Tony Blair has born this weight for a long time and has been subject to personal attacks of such ferocity and unpleasantness that would have broken a lesser man. Now when there is clear evidence absolving him absolutely of the crimes he was accused of by the opposition and the media he has every right to demand withdrawal, indeed such a right is afforded to him at law. Mr. Howard seems not to have the requisite integrity to make such a withdrawal and for that I dispose of any respect I held for the man.
And I made a bloody nice snowman ;)
Later
John