webofevil | Jul. 12th, 2006

I didn’t go with the “Bliar” thing when it was coined. First off, it doesn’t work; see how “blying” has resolutely declined to enter the vernacular. But, more to the point, Tony wasn’t lying when he said he thought committing our troops and resources to America’s Iraqi adventure without exerting any diplomatic pressure to do things differently was a great idea, so long as it ousted Saddam. Okay, he didn’t quite say that out loud, but now we have a slightly clearer picture of what was going on you can see it was written in 12-point all over his face. Now Iraq is imploding more impressively than even his most virulent critics predicted (“Look! They appointed a defence minister several months after the election!” = “I’ll grant that it’s aflame, sir, but you’ll find the Hindenburg’s nose-cone is holding its shape remarkably well”), Tony’s excuse for an excuse is essentially that only God can judge him—although that approach doesn't even seem to be particularly working out for Mark Morrison, let alone for a man who sent his country to war.

His relationship with the truth has long been a bit estranged, but that seems to be more a tic than a policy. He was presented with a slyly worded dossier to read out, designed to seed untrue headlines and generally manufacture the alarm necessary to get everyone as warred up as he was—but it's important we understand that on the whole he believed it. Why couldn’t everyone else see that Saddam was a Bad Man? This'll persuade them. Listen to this.

Of course, everyone knew exactly what Saddam was. But a lot of of them also sensed something wasn’t right about the whole endeavour. I knew someone who wanted to go to the 80-billion (say organisers) / 17 (say police) -person march in 2003 with a banner reading simply “What the bloody hell is going on?” There was, patently, no threat emanating from Iraq. The wellbeing of Britons converging on Hyde Park was measurably more threatened by the possibility of catching something off a dead pigeon at the edge of the grass. Indeed, there was a general feeling that the very fact that Iraq posed zero threat was what made it a target for a newly aggressive neocon America. Of course, Tony would call that cynicism. Then he would nip off to stay at the luxury villa of some newly ennobled fraudulent tax-evading millionaire.

But the man didn’t lie. Not in the sense you or I might mean it—not consciously. When he bangs out the slogans and the warm words about the bright dawns ahead and how he’ll make it all happen, he really appears to think most of the job is done. It’s like some kind of political synesthesia; they’re just words coming out, but he sees solid achievements. All we need now is a sound, responsible pillar of the business community to finalise everything and make sure it all works—how about that nice man whose villa I stayed in? *

So when he tells the House of Commons that there's no disparity at all in a new treaty between what the US requires before it will extradite anyone to the United Kingdom (information that would provide a "reasonable basis" to think they committed the offence) and what the UK requires before it'll extradite anyone to the United States (no such information)—can you spot the difference, readers?—he isn't the clueless poltroon that this makes him look, but nor is he lying. It's just the latest example of the truth as it appears to him at the time, on the day. It's so real when it comes out of his mouth. Why don't the rest of us understand?

* Note to

strictlytrue as he rolls up his shirtsleeves: I don't deny that some good work got done, mainly because Tony had some good people around him at the start, but that doesn't render the crisp fresh chips of my point about his initially slightly delusional and now really rather scary state remotely soggy.

Afterthought: And then you see nonsense like this and you just want to give the man even more powers. Well, briefly.