Watching Parkinson

As you do. Well normally I don't but I did this time. Ever since 9/11, this has been a difficult time in so many ways and it's good when moments of levity break onto the scene. The source of this levity in this case was not Blair's performance on Parkinson - I thought it was rather good - but the response you get from those lovely liberals who are so understanding of religion, provided it is of the kind that thinks opposition to America is a holy duty. I can't provide links on the grounds that there are simply too many directing you to sites and articles that suggest Blair has plunged into the deep end, brushed the wings of insanity by having the temerity to mention "God" in the same context in which the deployment of troops to Iraq are being mentioned.

Oh, how painfully would those currently making excuses for all the millenarian movement the world over, for those who sanction the murder of heretics, infidels and Jews in the name of God, want to believe that they heard Blair saying he had the Almighty's sanction for the invasion of Iraq. The BBC's report was really funny: whoever wrote this article handles the phrase "holy intervention" as if it were a dog-turd someone had handed to him in a napkin and he doesn't quite know what to do with it. Funny since this phrase was entirely his own invention. Blair didn't use it, and as anyone who has now seen the interview should admit, he didn't invoke the sanction of God for the invasion of Iraq either. Rather, and I speak as one of his part-time detractors, he said that his decision to participate in the invasion of Iraq would be judged by the people but also by God. I'm not a religious man but I prefer that to those who clearly only answer to the court of their own vanity and the small band they have persuaded to participate in their twisted narcissism of the political soul.

You wish you did, but I'm afraid you really didn't see a British Prime Minister telling you he was on A Mission From God to invade Iraq. And because of your hatred, you failed to spot the real significance of what you were seeing: he was telling you he's leaving. Because in a restrained manner, Blair was telling you he doesn't, and forgive me but I love to swear, give a fuck. He's got gate-fever because he's accepted his time is done. He was saying I have wrestled with my conscience before God over Iraq. If you think him insincere, at least on this occasion, you're wrong. But then again, I'm biased because despite disagreeing with much of what Blair has done, his repressive nannying, his weakness and compliance in the face of big business and the cult of celebrity, despite the fact that I could never bring myself to vote for his 'New' Labour, I completely identify heart and brain with his position in relation to the matter of regime-change in Iraq: I said I can do no other, so God help me. Can I get a witness, my brothers and sisters, can I get a witness?