We all remember the wonderful Tessa Jowell – the woman who signs her mortgage agreements over the breakfast table without asking her husband what it is she is signing - *cough* allegedly! Whilst many of us may well have hoped she had disappeared from politics for good, it turns out that she is actually holding down two jobs currently - Minister for the Olympics and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. However, it is fair to say that Tessa will always be remembered as the woman who divorced her husband to save her political career, after they had accepted £400,000 from Silvio Berlusconi following Mr Mills giving evidence in a court case in defence of the corrupt Italian former PM. Today Judges in Milan have sentenced David Mills to 4 and a half years in prison for bribery and corruption, and ordered him to pay £250,000 damages to the Italian State. Mr Berlusconi himself can not be prosecute after he passed a law while in power exempting him from prosecution (interestingly very swiftly after Mr Mills had lied for him in court to protect him from prosecution for bribery and corruption!).
I’m sure Tessa Jowell will have little or nothing to say on this subject, and play heavily on her separation from Mr Mills, but one has to wonder about the endemic corruption in politics and query whether dearest Tessa was really unaware that the nearly half a million pounds she and her husband had used to pay off their mortgage stemmed from Mr Mills knowingly lying in court in defence of the then PM of Italy. In fact, Tessa claimed at the time she not only had no idea where the money came from, as she didn’t think to ask her husband where he’d found a little under half a million pounds from, but that she was also unaware they had used it to pay their mortgage off, as she had simply signed some paper work over breakfast one morning. What a marriage! The type where your husband comes home from work one day with half a million quid, doesn’t tell you, then uses it to pay your mortgage off without telling you that either.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Lord Blair Champion of the Free World
I spotted this today:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Tony-Blair-Former-Prime-Minister-Wins-Million-Dollar-Prize-For-Achievements-That-Shape-Society/Article/200902315224001?lpos=Politics_Second_Home_Page_Article_Teaser_Region_3&lid=ARTICLE_15224001_Tony_Blair,_Former_Prime_Minister,_Wins_Million_Dollar_Prize_For_Achievements_That_Shape_SocietyWhich
In short, Tony Blair has been ‘awarded’ £697,000 from the Dan David Foundation in Tel Aviv for being “one of the most outstanding statesmen of our era”. Notwithstanding the utter ridiculousness of that sentiment, and the amazing amnesia as concerns Iraq and Afghanistan, does it not strike anyone else as a possible conflict of interests to be employed as the “Middle East Peace Envoy” whilst accepting a million dollars from one of the most eminent charitable bodies in Israel? OK, so Blair is ‘donating’ the money to his own “Faith Foundation” but nevertheless it seems to me that someone who wines, dines and courts the favours of one side to the point where they pay him a million pounds, yet has never had the courage or moral fortitude to even set foot on the Gaza Strip, may just, possibly, be a little biased in their outlook.
As for the Award, the Dan David Foundation has recognised Blair’s” achievements that shape and enrich society today". Although they conveniently forgot to mention the millions of dead innocent Iraqi and Afghan men, women and children who were murdered due to Blair’s desire to enter into a modern day crusade alongside his pal Bush. They did mention Kosovo, claiming "From the time he assumed leadership of the British Labour Party in 1994 until he stepped down as prime minister in 2007, he showed exceptional intelligence and foresight, and demonstrated moral courage and leadership. It was the Kosovo crisis in particular that transformed Tony Blair into an international leader on the basis of his steadfast determination and morally courageous leadership." Which is some of the best historic revisionism I have seen in a long time (you would have thought Israelis more than most would shy away from historic revisionism, but apparently not). The statement is also laughable.
Because as anyone that observed the situation with their own eyes and not via the auspices of Murdoch’s news empire remembers, Kosovo was a bloody tragedy where Blair managed to get himself dragged in as poodle to the US President (Clinton not Bush as it happened), then exacerbated the situation though inaction, then finally decide to react with a show of force that directly led to the deaths of tens of thousands. During the conflict our ‘protection’ of the Kosovans led to over a million ethnic Kosovars being internally displaced, of which a quarter of a million remain as internal refugees today, and ethnic tensions still continue to cause intermittent bloodshed. So a good job well done by Blair. Give the man an award. It is also interesting to note that in the Kosovo intervention which Blair is here lauded for, Blair and his chums intervened to protect Kosovans who had fought a bloody and brutal armed guerrilla war against the occupying powers of the Serbo-Croat alliance. And yet Blair refuses to accept that the Palestinians are engaged in a guerrilla war against an occupying power. Strange. Also interesting to note that both the situation in the Balkans and the situation in the Middle East are direct results of British nation building after the First World War where we arrogantly assumed that we could draw lines on maps, create countries, and force different peoples to live together despite thousands of years of bloody conflicts suggesting otherwise.
What perhaps upsets me more however is that this award continues our ‘civilised’ societies determination to honour, reward and make heroes of the men who lead us to war. If Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, the war on terror, and the situation in Israel today teach us anything, surely it is that armed conflict only begets more armed conflict, more pain, bloodshed and suffering, which the people on the street always bear the brunt of, while the war makers, the arrogant men with their delusions of grandeur, are decorated with awards and pieces of gold.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Tony-Blair-Former-Prime-Minister-Wins-Million-Dollar-Prize-For-Achievements-That-Shape-Society/Article/200902315224001?lpos=Politics_Second_Home_Page_Article_Teaser_Region_3&lid=ARTICLE_15224001_Tony_Blair,_Former_Prime_Minister,_Wins_Million_Dollar_Prize_For_Achievements_That_Shape_SocietyWhich
In short, Tony Blair has been ‘awarded’ £697,000 from the Dan David Foundation in Tel Aviv for being “one of the most outstanding statesmen of our era”. Notwithstanding the utter ridiculousness of that sentiment, and the amazing amnesia as concerns Iraq and Afghanistan, does it not strike anyone else as a possible conflict of interests to be employed as the “Middle East Peace Envoy” whilst accepting a million dollars from one of the most eminent charitable bodies in Israel? OK, so Blair is ‘donating’ the money to his own “Faith Foundation” but nevertheless it seems to me that someone who wines, dines and courts the favours of one side to the point where they pay him a million pounds, yet has never had the courage or moral fortitude to even set foot on the Gaza Strip, may just, possibly, be a little biased in their outlook.
As for the Award, the Dan David Foundation has recognised Blair’s” achievements that shape and enrich society today". Although they conveniently forgot to mention the millions of dead innocent Iraqi and Afghan men, women and children who were murdered due to Blair’s desire to enter into a modern day crusade alongside his pal Bush. They did mention Kosovo, claiming "From the time he assumed leadership of the British Labour Party in 1994 until he stepped down as prime minister in 2007, he showed exceptional intelligence and foresight, and demonstrated moral courage and leadership. It was the Kosovo crisis in particular that transformed Tony Blair into an international leader on the basis of his steadfast determination and morally courageous leadership." Which is some of the best historic revisionism I have seen in a long time (you would have thought Israelis more than most would shy away from historic revisionism, but apparently not). The statement is also laughable.
Because as anyone that observed the situation with their own eyes and not via the auspices of Murdoch’s news empire remembers, Kosovo was a bloody tragedy where Blair managed to get himself dragged in as poodle to the US President (Clinton not Bush as it happened), then exacerbated the situation though inaction, then finally decide to react with a show of force that directly led to the deaths of tens of thousands. During the conflict our ‘protection’ of the Kosovans led to over a million ethnic Kosovars being internally displaced, of which a quarter of a million remain as internal refugees today, and ethnic tensions still continue to cause intermittent bloodshed. So a good job well done by Blair. Give the man an award. It is also interesting to note that in the Kosovo intervention which Blair is here lauded for, Blair and his chums intervened to protect Kosovans who had fought a bloody and brutal armed guerrilla war against the occupying powers of the Serbo-Croat alliance. And yet Blair refuses to accept that the Palestinians are engaged in a guerrilla war against an occupying power. Strange. Also interesting to note that both the situation in the Balkans and the situation in the Middle East are direct results of British nation building after the First World War where we arrogantly assumed that we could draw lines on maps, create countries, and force different peoples to live together despite thousands of years of bloody conflicts suggesting otherwise.
What perhaps upsets me more however is that this award continues our ‘civilised’ societies determination to honour, reward and make heroes of the men who lead us to war. If Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, the war on terror, and the situation in Israel today teach us anything, surely it is that armed conflict only begets more armed conflict, more pain, bloodshed and suffering, which the people on the street always bear the brunt of, while the war makers, the arrogant men with their delusions of grandeur, are decorated with awards and pieces of gold.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)