Updated 30th January 2010: this may seem a bit overdue, but I’ve now added Armando Iannucci’s 9th and 10th questions that were Tweeted after I wrote my original post. In light of how yesterday’s events played out, it now seems as though my additional question for readers was a wee bit optimistic. It was based on the assumption that the former vicar of St Albion would receive a thorough grilling and be deftly evasive. In the event, a deft evasion wasn’t required as the “thorough grilling” turned out to be, at best, a gentle simmering, or possibly even a fricassée.

Blair’s remarkable transformation from Zero to Nero -- as those initial physiological signs of awkward nervousness swiftly morphed into a swaggering display of unrepentant moral righteousness -- seemed to be triggered by a prompt evaluation of his opponents’ capacity to do him harm. All it took was the merest hint of hesitation, deviation or lack of focus from the panel to neutralise the threat, and the opening question managed to convey all three.

It was a bit like watching Ronnie Barker in an episode of Porridge expecting to get a incandescent rollicking from Mr Mckay, only to find out that it’s Mr Barrowclough instead.

Just for once I’m going to sheepishly pop my head over the parapets and amble awkwardly into terra incognita. Yes, I’m venturing outside of my normal comfort zone of pop culture and low humour to talk about politics

Later today, the former vicar of St Albion will be giving evidence at the Iraq inquiry. I’ve got very strong opinions about this, but I’ll let you work those out for yourself.

Now, I’m not in the habit of following celebrities on Twitter, but Armando Iannucci is an exception as he’s fiendishly smart and very funny. The modern-day Moliere has been posting a series of questions on Twitter that he’d like Tony Blair to answer. For the benefit of those who don’t follow @AIannucci, don’t do Twitter or are somewhat averse to the textese-like vowel-gutting necessitated by a 140 character limit, here’s my humble attempt at translating them into English:

1. Was regime change one of your aims? Alastair Campbell’s diary entry for 2nd April 2002 confirms that participants at one meeting “discussed whether the central aim was WMD or regime change” and that “TB felt it was regime change” (at Iraq inquiry, former foreign minister Jack Straw said he regarded “a foreign policy objective of regime change” as “improper and also self-evidently unlawful.”)
2. In January 2003, your foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning recorded that you were “solidly with the president” about military action with or without a second UN Resolution. If this is so, then why didn’t you tell the Cabinet or parliament that you had already made up your mind? Why did you tell the Commons as late as 25th February 2003: “I do not want war. I do not believe that anyone in this House wants war. Even now we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully”?
3. On 24 September 2002 you told parliament that Saddam night acquire a usable nuclear weapon within “a year or two”. No substantive Intel ever supported that claim. Explain.
4. On 7th March 2003 Attorney General Lord Goldsmith sent you detailed legal advice questioning the legality of proceeding without a second UN resolution. By 17th March he’d hardened his position, so to speak, and provided unequivocal legal backing for the war. How many people helped him revise this advice? Are you happy for them to talk to the enquiry?
5. Did the Attorney General’s wife play any part in this change of advice? Are you happy for her to talk to the enquiry?
6. Foreign Office lawyer Elizabeth Wilmshurst’s resignation letter was censored for “security” reasons. The suppressed passage referred to Lord Goldsmith’s aforementioned change of heart over the legality of the war. Is this really a security matter? Would it be better described as an insecurity matter?
7. Government legal advisers said that justifying war as an act of self-defence would be illegal as there was no evidence that Saddam was planning an imminent attack. Why, then, did you not retract the 45 minute claim?
8. Why did you you present the Attorney General’s advice to the Cabinet, the House of Commons and the military as clear and unequivocal when you knew it wasn’t?
9. Last December, John Prescott told New Statesman magazine: “Bush is crap. You know it, I know it, the party knows it.” Why were our troops at his disposal?
10. Did you let political considerations delay proper military planning and financing, particularly over troop equipment?

Finally, a question for you:

1. Do you really think the former vicar of Albion will give a straight answer to any of the above?

So, Britain’s best-selling red-top is back in the blue camp again. I can’t say I was particularly surprised when The Sun’s 12 year love-in with New Labour came to an end the other week. Maybe it’s because my political conscience first rolled off the production line during the 1980s, but I’ve always struggled to think of the Soaraway One as anything other than a vicious little Tory rag. For me, at least, its recent volte-face was a bit like the Angling Times announcing a return to fishing-themed coverage after a decade or so spent focusing on musical theatre.

I’ve never much liked The Sun, but I don’t expect that revelation will come as a tremendous surprise to anyone who knows me and/or reads this blog. I don’t really fall into its target demographic, you see. It’s not pitched at those of us lumbered with left-leaning tendencies, celebrity tat allergies and a phobia of xenophobic homophobes. Mind you, this probably won’t give the Murdoch clan too many sleepless nights.

In The Sun’s defence, however, at least it’s not the Daily Mail. I may dislike The Sun, but I really do hate the Daily Mail almost as much as it seems to hate benefit cheats, asylum seekers and Jonathan Ross. That probably won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone, either. Still, I shouldn’t just pick on the obvious targets. While I’m on the subject, I detest the Daily Express, despise the Daily Star and wouldn’t eat chips out of most of the broadsheets, either.

These paper prejudices have been with me for years. They weren’t the result of some misspent life of political activism, a disastrous career on Fleet Street or even a Media Studies evening course at the local FE College. No, they have their roots in something far more mundane than that.

It was my paper round wot did it.

(more…)

“Art for art’s sake
Money for God’s sake”

- 10CC

From BBC News:

Artist Tracey Emin has said she is thinking of leaving the UK in protest about being overtaxed.

In a Sunday Times interview she said she was “very seriously considering leaving Britain,” adding: “I’m simply not willing to pay tax at 50%.”

Far be it for me to undermine your significant cultural significance here, Tracey, but doesn’t this behaviour – technically speaking, of course – put you in the same category of artist as, say, Jim Davidson, Paul Daniels or Phil Collins?   Phil, as you might remember, was another multi-millionaire who didn’t like the prospect of paying higher taxes, so he threatened to leave the UK if the Tories lost the 1997 general election.  Many regard this as a key decisive factor behind New Labour’s landslide victory.

You then go on to say that you’re thinking about moving to France:

“At least in France their politicians have always understood the importance of culture and they have traditionally helped out artists with subsidy and some tax advantages,” she said.

France, of course, is a wonderful country with a rich cultural heritage, Tracey.  You could do a lot worse than to move there.  I must admit, though, I’m not particularly au fait (as they say), with the country’s political system.   I don’t know, for instance, how supportive French politicians are of crass, inarticulate, creatively-bankrupt charlatans.   Don’t get upset, Tracey – I’m not saying that you’re like that, of course.  Of course.  I’m just trying to illustrate a point (and, no, Tracey – I don’t need to employ a team of assistants to help me illustrate a point).

You then say:

“We simply have what I call ‘ambition politicians’ who go from one department to another for career reasons,” she said.

Good on you, Tracey – someone has to stand up to these schmucks.  And ‘ambition politicians’ – that’s such a clever, nuanced turn of phrase.  I really hope it catches on.  And if anyone mentions “‘Ambition artists’ who go from one country to another for tax reasons”, then you take no notice.  Sticks and stones, and all that.

One last thing, Tracey.  I know that the Tories today announced that they’re planning to keep Labour’s 50% top rate tax for the foreseeable future, but you shouldn’t take it personally.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s some kind of cross-party campaign to encourage you to leave.

Maybe they just don’t want Phil Collins coming back.

As this is the 40th anniversary of what remains – in my opinion, at least – our species’ finest achievement, I’d just like to quote something that Apollo 11 astronaut Ed Mitchell said in the wonderful documentary film, In The Shadow of The Moon.

I find it particularly moving:

The biggest joy was on the way home.  In my cockpit window, every two minutes: The Earth, the Moon, the Sun, and the whole 360-degree panorama of the heavens.  And that was a powerful, overwhelming experience.  And suddenly I realized that the molecules of my body, and the molecules of the spacecraft, the molecules in the body of my partners, were prototyped, manufactured in some ancient generation of stars.  And that was an overwhelming sense of oneness, of connectedness; it wasn’t ‘Them and Us’, it was ‘That’s me!’, that’s all of it, it’s… it’s one thing.  And it was accompanied by an ecstasy, a sense of  ‘Oh my God, wow, yes’, an insight, an epiphany.

Can you honestly imagine Lenny Bruce or Bill Hicks submitting to the discipline of the Whips?

That was the Right Honourable MP for Ealing North, Stephen Pound, on this evening’s PM programme on Radio 4,  once again justifying his status as one of the only contemporary British politicians I’d happily buy a pint for.  Following the news that US satirist Al Franken had been elected as Minnesota Senator, Pound and comedy writer John O’Farrell were discussing whether its possible for a comedian or satirist to become a politician and remain funny.   Pound felt that it was unlikely, partly because a true satirist like Bruce or Hicks could never slavishly tow the party line.  He thought it was a shame, because “most MPs are so buttoned-down, they’re so tight, they’re so butt-clenchingly anxious not to give offense or do anything but pitch to the middle vote.”

Refreshing stuff.

To his credit, this isn’t the first time Stephen Pound has name-checked the mighty Bill Hicks.  According to his Wikipedia entry:

In February 2004 he initiated an early day motion mourning the 10th anniversary of the death of comedian Bill Hicks, calling him “unflinching and painfully honest” and his words “a bullet in the heart of consumerism, capitalism and the American Dream”.

I first heard of  Stephen Pound during Christmas 2003, when Radio 4’s Today Programme asked listeners to suggest laws that they’d like to see added to the statute books.  A shortlist was reached, listeners were invited to vote for their favourite and the Right Honourable MP for Ealing North agreed to provide political support to the winning law.  With the toe-curling predictability of an episode of Baywatch, the Great British public backed the most bloody-minded, vindictive, just-to-the-right-of-Genghis Khan option available.   Pound’s on-air reaction was priceless:  “Well, the people have spoken – the bastards.”

I’ve owed him a pint ever since.