THE SKETCH: Attack, feint, attack - Tony's never been more like Mrs T
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Your support makes all the difference.The Prime Minister has never been more muscular. What a man he is. My girlfriend is quite taken with him, in spite of everything I say. I have considerably better access to her than he does, you'd have thought. What reach he has.
The Prime Minister has never been more muscular. What a man he is. My girlfriend is quite taken with him, in spite of everything I say. I have considerably better access to her than he does, you'd have thought. What reach he has.
In PMQs yesterday, opponents beleaguered Mr Blair and he lashed about with enormous virility - he's never been more like Mrs Thatcher.
It was impossible to defeat him. We're Sumo wrestlers and he's Bruce Lee. He can't knock us down but we can't catch him either. He bounces from one defence to another with dazzling aplomb. "I cannot apologise for removing Saddam Hussein!" he says, to Labour cheers. Yes, if you have tears, prepare to shed them now. Regard the killing fields he has to show us, the 300,000 corpses in mass graves, the women and children executed. But then Labour's Bob Waring wondered how the Prime Minister squared the corpses and killing fields and mass graves with the fact that up to the 11th hour, the evil old maniac was being offered a deal to stay in power. Ah, but the war was never about mass graves, the PM says, it was about the UN resolutions (What? Not the one that was framed to exclude the threat of war?). It wasn't about regime change, it was about changing the regime, a very different thing. And establishing a democracy in the Middle East. And the price of oil. And about (suppress your brutal snort of laughter) containing international terrorism.
Michael Howard returned to some sort of form and held the attention of the House as he accused Mr Blair of misrepresenting intelligence. Mr Blair allowed himself a tremble of sincerity in his voice as he absolved himself from all such accusations. Mr Howard quoted from the latest report: "'Little was known about Saddam's WMD programme since 1998', but the Prime Minister told us it was "beyond doubt he continued to make WMD". How can he maintain he accurately reported the intelligence?"
Mr Howard has missed the point the Sketch took some pains to make yesterday. (I sometimes wonder if it's worth it, I do). Mr Blair didn't misrepresent the intelligence; he took great care to receive intelligence that was already misrepresented. Mr Blair didn't debauch the intelligence, he didn't even debauch the intelligence officers. Others did that dark work for him, maybe without even being told to. In an intriguing symmetry, Saddam didn't need to write out instructions to develop WMD, Mr Straw claimed: he merely let it be known - in a sofa-government way we recognise as our own - what he would find most agreeable.
Tom Brake made a point we may have cause to remember in due course. Israel has taken delivery of 500 "bunker buster" missiles from America, he said. Presumably, he went on, to drop on Iran's nuclear facilities.
It's just as well the world has been made safer by our Allied leaders or we might be getting anxious by now.
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