Harry’s Place

Google ads really does take the piss at times. ‘Vote Conservative’ is a new high.

Yeah, those wost my thought processes as well. Now, can we have something about Hasan Butt to threaten contempt of court with?

Poor old sycophant Brownie. Desperate to defend his beloved hero. “Ah, not so much a case of using private trauma to create a diversion” - no actually, read the piece - it is very clearly using a private trauma to create a diversion - a diversion from the fact that Blair was cancelling his holiday because the invasion was imminent. Take off those ideological spectacles, Brownie - you are looking at black and calling it white.

TheIrie has Blair’s number. Obviously Blair forced his wife to have a miscarriage in order to hide his planning for the invasion of Iraq. On orders of his Jew masters no doubt. And then they spread the blood of the fetus on their matzos!

The invasion was imminent in summer 2002?

a diversion from the fact that Blair was cancelling his holiday because the invasion was imminent

Christ, you can be truly moronic at times, Irie.

This was August 2002, more than 7 months before the war began. The holiday went ahead as planned after a short delay.

How do you manage to get so much wrong in so few sentences?

I thought Germaine Greer plumbed the depths of idiocy at the time.

They should have tried for another. That could have miscarried in time.

(The article does suggest chagrin at their discussing spin right in front of her, the spin of the headline notwithstanding.)

TheIrie, you might add that it was also used as a diversion to cover the imminent invasion of Iran that’s been due to happen Any Minute Now for the last 4 or 5 years

OK - I’ve been in the sun. My comment was silly, but the Guardian piece is correct, and reveals what a cynical, callous man Blair really is.

I meant the Guardian headline is correct. Really hot today.

Oh dear. What he’s trying to say is that the Guardian headline is mischievous in the extreme and reveals nothing exceptional.

He really does look parboiled.

CiF has just published a piece by Bassem Naeem, Hamas’ ‘information minister’. It’s not quite up there with the opinion piece they published by bin Laden, but it’s relatively close.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/bassem_naeem/2008/05/hamas_condemns_the_holocaust.html

“the opinion piece they published by bin Laden” Got a link or did you just make that up?

Something tells me that history is not going to remember this period of British Labour history too kindly. Let’s hope there are Labour Movement historians around in 100 years time to study it. It’s looking increasingly unlikely.

“the opinion piece they published by bin Laden” Got a link or did you just make that up?

No they certainly did publish an OBL piece on CIF. I remember picking up my jaw from the floor.

Well, it wasn’t exactly an op-ed OBL penned specially for the Guardian. The Guardian basically typed up a transcript of one his messages and put it in the Comments section

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jan/06/terrorism.comment

The headline is even worse on The Times front page:

‘Blair used wife’s grief to protect Iraq strategy’.

He “used” the grief?

If you vilify Blair enough, maybe Gordon will seem ‘nice’. But I think he’s looking tired.

That’s appalling.

I half-remember an Alistair Campbell quote when he was asked why politicians generally - and Downing Street especially - spin. He referred the interviewer to a lack of basic journalistic standards and asked what the interviewer thought newspapers (even the ’serious’ kind) would do with unspun stories.

I meant the Times headline is appalling, not Brett’s comment.

“I meant the Times headline is appalling, not Brett’s comment.”

A narrow escape! ;-)

I found it even more weird that Blair reported that she’d had her toilet bag searched the first time she went to Balmoral. Does the Queen not have enough moisturiser?

I don’t think it was ’searched’ as such, Judith. More that the waiting on hand and foot extended to the flunkies unpacking everything in their luggage, down to the stuff in her washbag.

There was an amusing anecdote from Jeremy Paxman. He’d been a guest of (I think) Prince Charles. Going to bed that evening he noticed that they’d taken and pressed every item of clothing in his suitcase and then realised, to his mild embarrassment, that he was wearing an pair of rather tattered underpants (possibly M&S boxers, given his strong views on that matter). He decided he did not want these to be exposed to the derisive gaze of the rather over-attentive and fastidious royal staff.

So screwed them up into a tiny ball and threw them on top of the wardrobe where no one would think to look for them. The next afternoon he returned to his room to find the offending boxers freshly laundered and pressed and lying on his bed.

Ah yes Brownie, Alistair Campbell, that bastion of standards.

What? This is supposed to be surprising that a politician would be so calculating?

Ah yes Brownie, Alistair Campbell, that bastion of standards.

I think it’s precisely Campbell’s past life running with the pack that qualifies him to make this judgment. Forget who he is for long enough to consider whether the point he’s making is somewhere near the truth.

I see Cherie Blair says she got pregnant at Balmoral because she was too embarassed to take her contraception with her. And this woman sends people to gaol!!!! Thanks for the tip about the staff going through your dirty washing. IOf I’m ever invited to stay with a member of the Royal Family(and let;s face it, you never know howd things are going to turn out) I’ll make sure I sleep with any ‘embaresseing items’ under my pillow.