Tony Blair’s knighthood is an insult

The insensitivity of announcing Tony Blair is to receive a knighthood at this time is unforgivable. All the families that lost loved ones, the thousands maimed for life in the Afghanistan war that Tony Blair took us into, who now know it was completely in vain. The Taliban are now back in control.

Add to that the war in Iraq, and he should have been charged with war crimes, not knighted. There never were weapons of mass destruction. The honours list needs renaming.

Helen Rowland

Harwich

2022 begins with the shameful news that former PM Tony Blair is to be appointed a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in the new year honours list.

This is despite Blair’s central role in enabling the calamitous invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq by the USA, the UK and their so-called “coalition of the willing”. Remember his lie that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons capable of being deployed against the UK within 45 minutes?

Granting Tony Blair the oldest and highest rank in the British order of chivalry is an insult to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis his war killed. It is an insult to the millions of Iraqi people displaced by the conflict. It is an insult to those Iraqi prisoners who were tortured by western troops in Abu Ghraib prison. It is an insult to the Iraqi civilians abused by members of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers at Camp Bread Basket in Basra in 2003. This was the true nature of the “liberation” Blair’s war brought to Iraq.

Blair argued in the pre-invasion build-up that Britain had to pay a “blood price” to secure its special relationship with the USA. A blood price was paid, but not by Tony Blair.

Sasha Simic

London

Tony Blair’s knighthood was long awaited. At an international level, this award may be a recognition for his central role in bringing long-lasting safety and stability to the people of Iraq. At a national level, it may recognise his contribution to enhancing the trust and confidence of the British public in the office of the prime minister.

Bambos Charalambous

Manchester

In the face of the latest Covid wave, the media are quoting members of the public saying things along the lines of “if Johnson and his cronies can have cheese and wine parties, I don’t see why I shouldn’t do the same.”

People should remember that this is the same Johnson who, in the face of the first wave, went about boasting he had visited Covid wards and shook hands with everyone, only to then be infected and end up in intensive care.

He survived, but nearly 150,000 others in the UK did not.

So don’t think that non-compliance with Covid restrictions will somehow show him. Remember, you are not the prime minister or one of his cronies, so when beds and NHS staff are in short supply don’t assume you will be OK, unless of course you landed a PPE contract and still have a key to the back door.

John Simpson

Ross on Wye

It’s not just Brexit that’s not living up to the hype. Johnson was warned of the damage that a hard Brexit would inflict on the economy but went ahead with it anyway and, as disclosed, the forecast is for a 4 per cent long term hit to GDP.

The Tories seem to make a habit of ignoring experts. In 1925, for example, they rejected the economist Keynes’ advice not to return to the gold standard at pre-1914 parity, resulting in the high value of the pound reducing exports, putting people out of work and contributing to a stagnating economy.

Other Tory economic failures include the Maudling dash for growth in the 1960s, the Barber boom in the 1970s and the Lawson boom in the 1980s that, by overstimulating the economy, sowed the seeds of balance of payments deficits, currency instability and future recessions.

The claim by the Tories that only they can be trusted to manage the British economy is clearly a myth.

Roger Hinds

Surrey

Ed Cumming writes glowingly about the opening episode of the new BBC drama The Tourist and I have to admit that it created a fascination for the viewer such as to guarantee an audience for following episodes.

However, as someone who has spent a lifetime researching deserts, I was horrified to watch the opening sequences that show the main character attempting to escape a pursuing articulated truck by driving off-road in the Australian outback. Many studies show that the track marks of vehicles persist in the landscape for decades, if not centuries, because, with so little rainfall, there are no restorative natural processes.

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I couldn’t but reflect for the umpteenth time that humans treat this planet – their only home – with so much disdain that even barely habitable environments are subject to wanton despoliation. In the case in question, it might make a couple of minutes of exciting viewing, but, for the planet, the impact will be long-lasting and irrevocable.

Ian Reid

Kilnwick

A lot of the people vehemently opposed to vaccination seem to think that no one else is affected by their insistence on their right to choose. Can they not understand that compromises must always be made between individual freedoms and the greater good?

Would they have any objection if I drank a large amount of alcohol and then drove my uninsured car very fast along the street where they live?

Susan Alexander

South Gloucestershire