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Blair had wanted to end his prime ministerial broadcast on the eve of the invasion with ‘God Bless’, but Alastair Campbell advised against it. It’s not just in this part of the world that religion can be employed in pursuit of evil. A prime minister, who genuflected at the altar of the US war machine, was hellbent on aggression regardless of the facts. Just last week, former defence secretary Geoff Hoon claimed he was ordered to burn a memo warning that invading Iraq could be illegal. He bombed an entire country back into the Stone Age and he did it on the basis of a lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. They anaesthetised war and turned it into a spectator sport for us to watch from the comfort of our armchairs.īlair did not ‘liberate’ Iraq. The embedded broadcast media spoke of ‘surgical strikes’, ‘precision bombing’ and ‘shock and awe’ in 2003. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children - who never dropped a bomb nor held a gun - had their precious lives snatched from them. Some 179 British servicemen died, and every one of their deaths is an absolute tragedy for their families.īut Iraqi civilians paid a far greater price for the former prime minister’s deeds. Munday-Baker, whose son James was 21, said Blair “should be made to walk through a field of IEDs like our children did”. They’re threatening to return the Elizabeth Crosses she bestowed on them. “It makes a mockery of our children’s lives, and we are struggling to cope.” “We beg you to revoke his knighthood which we believe tramples on our sons’ sacrifices,” they state. She brands the knighthood “a slap in the face” to his memory.įive other bereaved mothers - Carol Valentine, Hazel Hunt, Caroline Whitaker, Caroline Jane Munday-Baker and Helen Perry - have written to the Queen. Rose Gentle’s 19-year-old son Gordon was straight out of basic Army training when he was killed by a roadside bomb in Basra. And those most strongly supporting it are the families of the men Blair sent to war who never came home. It wasn’t started by one of the ‘usual suspects’ but by former soldier and committed royalist Angus Scott. More than a million people have signed the petition to have toxic Tony stripped of his honour. Opposition to the move is not confined to the fringes. The Queen is choosing to honour a prime minister who misled her parliament. There is nobody more ill-deserving of a knighthood than this man. Garcia, who, when asked if he would still attempt an arrest on the former prime minister, replied: “One-hundred, percent I would do it again.Sign up to Suzanne Breen's Politics Unplugged newsletter for expert analysis of what's important at Stormont.Įnter email address This field is required Sign Up “I think the good things Tony Blair did for this country shouldn’t detract from the crimes that he committed and how we view them,” added Mr. Garcia, a D.J., who is unimpressed by arguments that Iraq should not detract from Mr. “I think it is a bit of a disgrace that the queen is looking to knight him,” said Mr. Blair was dining, attempted a citizens’ arrest on the former prime minister, alleging war crimes. Among the signatories of the petition is Twiggy Garcia, who, while working part-time in a restaurant in 2014 where Mr. Blair, and for some of his critics, it probably never will. That time has does not yet seem to have arrived for Mr. Professor Fielding said that, historically, it is not uncommon for successful prime ministers to suffer big drops in popularity after relinquishing power, and it has often been decades before their records are reassessed more evenhandedly. Blair “did lots of good things,” adding: “I think it’s only right that we do honor our previous prime ministers.” Blair’s government, saying that it had “introduced a national minimum wage and repaired the public services that had been neglected under the Tories.”Īnd there was also support from a government minister, Maggie Throup, who told LBC Radio that Mr.