Former English Prime Minister Tony Blair has taken his share of beatings here at S&R, and I’m grateful to my colleague Wufnik for periodically reminding us all what an invertebrate git Wee Bambi is. In the grand scheme of things (you know, helping his Mac Daddy George Bush invade Iraq, resulting in the pointless deaths […]
Search results: "tony blair"
Tony Blair tries to explain himself, and gets some help
Tony Blair’s political autobiography, A Journey, went on sale in the UK and the US today, and has prompted, if not a firestorm, a huge amount of media and political shouting over a number of points raised in the book—particularly Blair’s ongoing feud with Gordon Brown, and Blair’s continuing justification for the invasion of Iraq. […]
Just how greedy is Tony Blair, anyway?
Is there anything Tony Blair won’t do for money?
Tony Blair, President?
Henry Kissinger is said to have once remarked, when asked if he was planning to consult with Europe on something or another, “Who do I call?” Well, there may soon be an answer to that question, following the approval by Irish voters this past weekend of the European Constitution. It now appears very likely that […]
Tony Blair whacks the press; the press whacks back: Chill, dudes
In a reversal of the old adage “dance with the one who brought ya,” outgoing British prime minister Tony Blair is taking shots at the press, calling it “a feral beast” — despite admitting that his government paid “inordinate attention†to “courting, assuaging and persuading the media.†The title of his speech: “Reflections on the […]
Our Miss Brooks prepares for a visit to the woodshed
So at last one shoe dropped today, and it’s a pretty meaningful one. Rebekah Brooks, former editor of both the News of the World and The Sun, and the former CEO of News International here in the UK, is being charged today with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Along with her husband Charlie, […]
Will Scotland leave the UK?
There has been much discussion of this very question this past week, since suddenly it looks as if there will be a referendum on the issue of Scottish independence in Scotland in 2014. Actually, there’s a whole lot going on surrounding this referendum, including whether there might be a similar one elsewhere in the UK […]
Murdochgate redux
There have been any number of further developments since our last post, and this shows signs of accelerating to the point of being out of Murdoch’s control entirely. Well, let’s face it—in the UK, it pretty much is. Rebekah Brooks resigned on Friday, and was arrested on Sunday. Murdoch’s long time deputy Les Hinton, who […]
Trouble in Murdochland redux
A couple of months ago we noted that things were not going all that well in Murdochland, what with investigations heating up over allegations that phone hacking–that delightful pastime of hacking into someone’s voicemail so you can read and/or hear their messages—was far more pervasive than anyone had guessed. Or, certainly, than Murdoch and his […]
Why Obama went after Osama, really
Like most people, I’m mostly glad that Osama is dead. He directly caused the deaths of thousands of people, and indirectly led to the deaths, displacement and exile of millions more. Would Sparky have launched the grand $3 trillion and yet-to-be-paid-for invasion of Iraq if Osama hadn’t leveled the Towers? No, of course not. So […]
A royal wedding
So, like two billion other people around the world, we’re still watching this on television. Imagine. Two billion people. That’s like, what, nearly one third of the world’s population? We have some Republican—i.e., anti-Royal—friends who are probably wondering what the appeal of this is. This is an outdated institution in this day and age, right? […]
Trouble in Murdochland
Rupert Murdoch probably thought that, at 80, he could ride off into the sunset and leave News Corporation in good hands—those of his trusty assistant, Robert Thompson, and his son James, who is being moved to the US from the UK to become the firm’s number three. Murdoch has built one of the most remarkable […]
Chilcot redux
The UK’s Inquiry into the Iraq war and the UK’s role in it kicks off again this week. Technically known as TheThe Iraq Inquiry but more conventionally known as the Chilcot inquiry (since it is being chaired by Sir John Chilcot), this series of hearings has produced occasionally riveting theatre. In some respects this has […]
Party conference on, dude!
It’s high political season in the UK, with the Lib Dem and Labour party conferences going on over the past week. The big news, of course, is that the Labour party has a new leader. Ed Miliband, who has had virtually no life outside of politics since leaving university, managed to eke out a victory […]
Journey's End
Well, the advance sales on Tony Blair’s autobiography (A Journey—how’s that for a title?) must not be shaping up the way the publisher had hoped. First, we learned that the publisher was banking on sales in the United States making the whole enterprise profitable—meaning it had pretty much given up any hope of selling many […]
That Libya thing
There’s a whole lot of ink being spilled, and much, much more to come, over the US Senate’s whining over the early release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted by Scottish judges back in 2000 for the Pan Am 103 bombing. Megrahi was released in 2009 on compassionate grounds—he was suffering from advanced prostate […]
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