Over the years I have carried on a fitful quarrel with Peter Oborne, now writing in the Daily Mail on Saturdays, about whether Tony Blair is a liar. To date, I am happy to report, and despite his having written a whole book on the subject, he has failed to find a single incontrovertible instance of Blair knowingly telling an untruth. Apart from one.
"I wouldn't live in a big city if I could help it. I would live in the country. I was brought up there, really." Which is not true, really, or even at all, as I commented in my biography of Blair, which Oborne was generous enough to cite as his source.
Oborne's other main contribution to the subject has been to debunk the common myth that Blair claimed to have watched Jackie Milburn play at Newcastle when that player retired four years before the Blair family arrived in Durham from Australia in 1958. Oborne was conscientious enough to dig out the recording of BBC Radio 5 Live interview that gave rise to this canard and to discover that what Blair had actually said was: "I came just after the Jackie Milburn era."
So I read Oborne's column in the Mail on Saturday with interest, and some anticipation. It was headlined, "As it's confirmed Blair lied to MPs over Ecclestone, I can reveal he lied to them again - and here's my proof."
Fish. Barrel. First, of course, it was not confirmed that Blair lied to MPs about the Ecclestone affair, as I pointed out - not very well, obviously - last week. My points were that it was not Blair's finest hour; he did not lie; and the new facts that are supposed to have "confirmed" that he did are not new. The crux of the matter is Blair's answer to Peter Luff at Prime Minister's Questions on 12 November 1997:
"I met them [representatives of Formula 1] on 16 October. No decisions were taken then."
Formally, that is correct. Immediately after Blair met representatives of Formula 1, including Bernie Ecclestone, he asked Frank Dobson, the Health Secretary, to "look for a way" to "protect the position of sports in general and Formula 1 in particular" - as I reported in my 2001 book, p366-7. The decision as to how that would be done - an exemption for Formula 1 - was taken a couple of weeks later.
So, what then about Oborne's new "proof" that Blair lied about something else? The claim is that Blair lied to the House of Commons when he told Michael Howard at Prime Minister's Questions on 12 May 2004 that neither he nor other ministers knew about allegations of abuse of prisoners by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq before the publication of the photographs on 28 April.
The key sentence is the one that Oborne quotes:
"It is not correct that ministers or I were aware of those allegations in respect of American troops."
Oborne reports that one minister was aware of those allegations: Bill Rammell, then a junior Foreign Office minister, now Minister of State for the Middle East, met the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva seven weeks before the photographs became public and was told of allegations that British and American forces had mistreated Iraqis. He told Oborne that he was so shocked that he immediately convened an emergency meeting of Foreign Office officials.
Oborne quotes Rammell as saying:
"I was assured that defence ministers were already aware of the allegations and that actions were being taken by the Ministry of Defence to deal with the allegations, which was the case."
Here, Rammell is plainly talking about the allegation of brutality on the part of British forces - hence the reference to the MoD. My understanding is that Rammell was also told about the Red Cross's allegations against American forces, including those at Abu Ghraib, which was already the subject of a US Army investigation before the publication of the photos.
But, worrying though they might have been, the charges against American troops would not, and should not, have been Rammell's main concern. And we have no idea how specific the information was that he was given.
It may be that, four years later, Blair's claim that "ministers" were not aware of the allegations in respect of American troops turns out not to be right. If so, we would know that only because Rammell has now told us so; there was no way that Blair could have been reasonably expected to know that at the time.
So, as usual: no evidence that Blair lied. Anyone reading the full exchange with Michael Howard at PMQs would conclude that the former Prime Minister showed the same skill at presenting a partisan case in which he believed as that shown by Oborne - only Blair did it without having to bandy the l-word about.
...Oh yes he did! Mr Rentoul, you are at best a fantasist and, at worst, a deliberate revisionist.
I fancy the latter to be true, as it appears to be an essential facet of the left-liberal socialist mindset.
Posted by: Keith Lonsdale | Tuesday, 21 October 2008 at 02:09 AM
Under the circumstances, it is high time Phony Blah was given a statue. Never, in the field of human conflict, has so much phoniness been done by so few to so many. Or words to that effect. A special ceremony could be arranged with leading speeches from his honourable friends Mandelson and Campbell. A bottle of champagne (if we can afford it) could be broken on the statue by Gordon. Nelson could be removed and put somewhere like Greenwich Docks and Phony put up on the plinth to look down on his country, with a satisfied smile. People could be invited to write comments in a gilded
book.....
Posted by: john problem | Tuesday, 21 October 2008 at 07:56 AM
John, your choice of words amy be more appropriate than you realised; When the British people finally wake up to the truth about Bliar's sellout to the EU, we could soon be "fighting them on the beaches!"
Posted by: Keith Lonsdale | Tuesday, 21 October 2008 at 02:19 PM
"I feel a deep sense of responsibility and humility. You put your trust in me and I intend to repay that trust. I will not let you down."
Election night, May 2 1997
"People want honest politics and they are going to get it."
During 1997 election campaign
"I can't stand politicians who wear God on their sleeves."
The Daily Telegraph, April 7 1996
"I am listening. I hear. And I will act."
2000
How about these for a start Mr Rentoul?
For further reading type "Blair's Lies" into your search engine and you'll probably get between 3,500 and 5,000 hits!
Blair was possibly the most perfidious and mendacious Prime Minister this country has had since 1940.
Posted by: flipped | Tuesday, 21 October 2008 at 02:27 PM
Rentoul: Your gargantuan man-crush on Phoney Tony (a man so discredited that it is only through the Frankensteinish labours of apologists such as yourself that his reputation lumbers on with any semblence of integrity) is truly a wonder to behold -- a vomit-inducing testament to the festering corpse that is British political journalism.
If Blair isn't a liar then he's the most willfully blind politician since dog knows when.
flipped: "since 1940"? Chamberlain was a man who however misguidedly tried to avoid a catastrophic war, not plunged into one with reckless disregard to truth, justice, and realpolitik, for the sake of some delusionary "special relationship" with Dick Cheney's useful idiot in the White House.
Posted by: Macander | Tuesday, 21 October 2008 at 05:39 PM
Thank you macander, I'm aware of what happened in my lifetime. Chamberlain may well have wanted to save this country from a disastrous war and may have brought it some extra time in which to prepare for it but the price for "Peace in our time" (The Munich Agreement) was the nazi annexation of the Sudatenland and Czechoslovakia. So if you don't mind I'll stick with that date!
Posted by: flipped | Tuesday, 21 October 2008 at 09:51 PM
flipped: With all due respect to your memories of the time, my point was that Chamberlain's actions at Munich were primarily an exercise in realpolitik (buying time, as it were), although his "peace in our time" rhetoric was undoubtedly horse manure.
While perfidy and mendacity are sine quibus non in politics, I don't think Chamberlain's actions are in the same league as Blair's, who sold us a needless war, figureheaded by a near-moron, promoted and incompetently planned and executed by crypto-fascist clique embedded in the US establishment.
One could make the case that Blair was (and is) naive in his dealings with Bush. However, I think the public record shows that mendacity and perfidy are also key aspects of his character, even if he's deceiving himself almost as much as he believes he's deceiving us. In short, an argument could be made that Chamberlain was an honourable man in ill-starred circumstances; I don't believe you can argue this in Blair's favour.
Posted by: Macander | Tuesday, 21 October 2008 at 11:42 PM
""In short, an argument could be made that Chamberlain was an honourable man in ill-starred circumstances; I don't believe you can argue this in Blair's favour.""
Honourable men do not sell other people into slavery, or give their countries and future generations into the hands of a ruthless tyrant!
Chamberlain was a poor and weak politician and not an honourable man!
Posted by: flipped | Wednesday, 22 October 2008 at 01:44 PM
flipped: From Churchill's eulogy on Chamberlain's death: "It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart--the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour."
Churchill may have been overgenerous, as most are when speaking about the dead, but I don't believe this could ever be said about Blair and therefore your characterisation of Blair as the worst PM since Chamberlain is very unfair to Chamberlain, however "poor and weak" his judgement and actions were. Chamberlain sold no one into slavery and had no country except Britain to give to anyone.
Blair, on the other hand, willfully ignored intelligence and the wishes of his own electorate to plunge headlong into a strategically misguided and unnecessary war on the coattails of an erratic and unreliable ally. For that history should certainly judge him more harshly than Chamberlain.
Posted by: Macander | Wednesday, 22 October 2008 at 05:34 PM
I am a tremendous admirer of John Rentoul's integrity and steadfastness as a commentator. However, this article by John is badly wrong. In order to vindicate Tony Blair, he quotes Rammell out of context in this crucial passage:
'Oborne quotes Rammell as saying:
"I was assured that defence ministers were already aware of the allegations and that actions were being taken by the Ministry of Defence to deal with the allegations, which was the case."
Here, Rammell is plainly talking about the allegation of brutality on the part of British forces - hence the reference to the MoD.'
But Rammell's full quote ran as follows:
"It is categorically untrue that I did nothing when informed by the Red Cross about the Abu Ghraib scandal. As soon as I was informed, I immediately convened an emergency meeting at the Foreign Office to question officials.
"I was assured that defence ministers were already aware of the allegations, and that actions were being taken by the Ministry of Defence to deal with the allegations, which was the case.'
This passage shows that there is simply no question at all that Rammell was referring to atrocities committed by US troops at Aby Ghraib, and not (as Rentoul asserts) the entirely separate allegations against British troops. There is therefore no question at all that Tony Blair misled the House of Commons when he claimed that ministers did not know about the Abu Ghraib allegations.
Posted by: peter oborne | Thursday, 23 October 2008 at 08:43 PM
This is so obviously filled with denial and Pollyanna wishful thinking that it is not really worth engaging with. A real psyhciatric problem I feel.
Can I suggest John revisits the Iraq debacle? Or maybe Bernie Ecclestone? among others? Why not his run in with Wales when the Welsh Labour Party wanted to elect Rhodri Morgan to lead it?
Posted by: Stephen | Friday, 24 October 2008 at 01:59 AM
Peter Oborne (above) betrays all the hallmarks of the conspiracy theorist. My point in quoting Bill Rammell was subsidiary, to give context, which is that his main concern at the time would have been the allegations that British troops mistreated Iraqis. This is borne out by the full quotation that Oborne now gives. The behaviour of British troops is a matter for the Ministry of Defence. The behaviour of American troops is for the Foriegn Office. My point stands: there is no evidence that Blair knew or should have known that any ministers knew of allegations about the conduct of American troops at Abu Ghraib.
Posted by: John Rentoul | Friday, 24 October 2008 at 12:18 PM