Telegraph’s Ben Brogan notices the Ban Blair-Baiting petition

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1st February 2011

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A PLUS POINT FOR THE TELEGRAPH and BEN BROGAN

NOW THERE’ S A SURPRISE!

I promise you that whenever I see the press writing or saying something on Tony Blair or the Iraq war which seems to be fair and without an agenda, I’ll let you know.

It may not be often, but when it happens, they’ll get a mention. They’ll deserve it.

I do realise it’s a painful state to be in to actually suggest that perhaps we Blair supporters might have a point on our former Prime Minister.

We tend to take this peculiar stance: “no, we don’t think he should be hanged, drawn and quartered for lying/treason/war crimes.  In fact we don’t even think he should stand trial for such … “

Not that standing trial is really necessary as far as many of THE HATERS are concerned. And they ARE haters. You only have to read their comments to see that. They are not balanced people.

Ben Brogan, Telegraph journalist

STOP BLAIR-BAITING, NO, REALLY

Mr Brogan tempers his article right from the off.  With the somewhat incredulous, rather apologetic headline, essential in the Telegraph presumably to ward off the whips at his back, his article is headed –

“Stop Blair-baiting. No, really”

But I forgive him the innuendo that Blair-baiting is an understandable game to play.  He’s only repeating what “we all know” after all. Unwilling to elaborate as to WHY his last sentence may well be the case (viz Blair was a winner/he was right over Iraq) Mr Brogan ends his article with -

“He [Blair] is still a cause of embarrasment[sic] for his successors, perhaps because in their hearts they suspect they might have stood a better chance last May if they had stuck with him.”

Mr Brogan, although he wouldn’t think of saying so outright to his hanging ‘n’ flogging commenters, seems to understand that it is not quite the thing in polite, educated, civilised society to pre-judge anyone, far less a man who has given his life to public service. Tony Blair is no convicted “war criminal”. Nor has he been charged with such crimes. Nor is he ever likely to be.

I wonder when Mr Brogan is going to sign the Ban Blair-Baiting petition? Or would that be a concession too far?

It’s a great pity most of Ben Brogan’s commenters don’t even see what they are doing with their puerile, nasty, vitriol and evil-minded comments. Or, and more worrying, perhaps they DO see.  It’s a greater pity that the press as a whole does not crack down on it.  The press, surely, understands the power of the media.

Click picture to visit Ban Blair-Baiting website

PLUMBEUS COMMENTARIAT IGNARUS

[Excuse the, sort of, Latin. Sometimes proper English fails me! I'll be better in a minute]

It is my contention that these individuals, these online opiners on comment pages, are not merely practising free speech. They are  in flagrante delicto, and should be taken to task for this, even if they have been tutored to believe they are vox populi. They are nothing of the sort, despite their insistence that they are.

A taste of Brogan’s commenters follows, without correction for spelling. (My emphasis). No more Latin. This lot would sound more at home in Medieval England – “thon gibbet for thee, my man.  Say thine prayers.”

O stint thy clappe, in the name of God!

• “Blair removed the death penalty for Treason. This must be re-introduced. I should like to see Blair charged in the Hague and interred for the entire period of his Trial. Let Blair’s trial be warning to all.”
• “Hanging is too good for this one.”
• “That bloody man should swing.”
• “Blair is an arch criminal and traitor.”
• “The people will never accept this traitor and any government that finds a ‘place’ for him will face the same condemnation as this traitor and war criminal. Cameron take note!”
• “Blair is a war criminal and deserves the same treatment as Milosovic and others. We shouldn’t rest until he is tried and prosecuted.”
• “Hitler had the Honour to end his own life. Blair doesn’t have any Honour worthy of the name.”
• “Blair the man whose lies took Britain into a war that should never have been will never be forgiven. We owe it the many, many victims of this man’s evil deception.”
• “Who do you suggest we forgive next Mr Brogan? Adolf? Pol Pot? Stalin? Henry Kissinger?”
• “… the man is a traitor and deserves a traitor’s death.“
• “Anyone who supports Blair is in my book deserving of a mean spririt,thats the least of it. A noose comes to mind.”

So there you go. If you think that a man who has not been tried for anything should not be vilified as an ‘evil war criminal’ or a ‘traitor’, nor should he be offered as a candidate for summary (mob) justice, it’s a noose for you too!

You’ll have to get in the queue.

There are also better thought-through comments, of course. Amazing how it takes longer to think than it does to bandy about words like ‘criminal/traitor’, isn’t it? Here’s one:

“This is a great campaign as it lets the other voice ‘get heard’ and that is very important however much you may disagree with it if you want a fair and balanced debate particularly in light of the fact that there is so much negative coverage. The ‘other’ side has to be heard.

I do not hold the majority view that Blair lied and that he is a war criminal and am finding it an increasing nightmare to have a proper conversation without the Blair haters yelling over the top of me like my opinion isn’t valid or important or them dismissing everything I say simply because I don’t share their view point.

I feel very comfortable with my view I know I’m a balanced individual that has looked at both sides of the story and not according to the media who seem so often to misinterpret the coverage and evidence at the Chilcot enquiry to fit their own opinions. I can see a lot of the arguments against the war and that people feel very strongly about it but I am still continually astonished at the level of hatred towards Blair and the vile things that are said him which I so strongly feel are not justified. The anger of the families that have lost loved ones is of course easier to understand and accept. This will be the fifth enquiry, none of the previous four have concluded that he lied to take us into war and if this enquiry concludes what I suspect it will that alot of mistakes were made but TB basically DID NOT LIE and made the decision in good faith, the interpretation by the public and media will undoubted be a white wash purely because they will not have the conclusion they wanted. Are we to spend thousands more pounds of tax payers money on hundreds of enquiries till the end of time until someone comes up with a conclusion that the media and public want. What is the point then? Surely those Blair haters are in denial?

I also believe there is a good sizable amount of people that don’t actually care about whether we went to Iraq in the first place! They just want something to vent their ‘everyday life’ frustration and anger out on and TB’s an easy target!

This last comment and a few others are the exceptions at Brogan’s. Most commenters online really are a nasty lot. The old fall-back once-liberal position – innocent until proven guilty – applied so ‘liberally’ to anyone else in our country – deserving or not, transient or not, including infiltrators with terror in mind – does not apply to Tony Blair. Why not? Because – “WE ALL KNOW, DON’T WE?”

It’s also worrying when Mr Brogan himself says he hadn’t been aware of the Ban Blair-Baiting petition before yesterday. The petition owner assures me that he wrote to ALL of the mainstream papers when he launched it. That delete button is just too tempting.

The New Statesman article to which Mr Brogan links is actually a year old, Jan 2010, just as Mr Blair was appearing for the first time at the Iraq Inquiry. I was in attendance on that occasion, as I also was this year. My posts on them -

2010

• Jan 2010 – I was a witness (more or less) to the TRIAL of Tony Blair, aka the Iraq Inquiry
• Tony Blair at Iraq Inquiry – ONE report with NO opining
• Iraq Inquiry Special, New Statesman: Press Release – Ban Blair-Baiting petition

2011

• Blair (the 5% man with 100% responsibility) in the ‘dock’ at the Iraq Inquiry
• BBC apologises yet again, but this time you won’t be hearing about it
• BBC reporter on Control Orders: “And BOTH were cleared”
• Ignore this, please: Blair Supporter’s Thoughts on TB’s 2nd appearance at the Iraq Inquiry
• The BIG (biased) Question – War Crimes & ‘The Downing Street One’
• Greased lightning Tony didn’t have time to hear my THANKS
• Tony Blair regrets. Blair supporters thank him for his political nous
• Off to the Public Hanging. I’ve packed the knitting

I have more to write on his recent outing before Chilcot’s panel. What do you mean EIGHT’S enough? Not nearly enough!  I haven’t even got around to dissecting forensically (as is the wont of the HATERS) Blair’s evidence or even taking a peek at the Chilcot panel’s modus operandi. Believe me, I’ve hardly started.

HOW MANY PRO-BLAIRS DID THE PRESS INTERVIEW?

Funnily enough NONE of the press wanted to interview me after either evidence session. A little busy with bereaved forces’ families it seems.  So, if I have time that could be the ELEVENTH report on the ongoing tale of TB’s pre-Trial Trial, aka the Iraq Inquiry.

You should know that in this FREE SPEECH/FREE PRESS world of ours, Stan Rosenthal, the man moved to writing this article at The New Statesman actually PAID for  it [correction: he paid for the Ban Blair-Baiting advertisement, around which his article was built] and not just a few quid, in order  to get any coverage at all for Mr Blair’s side of the story.  Mr Rosenthal and I and others have long given up expecting anything approaching fair treatment for Tony Blair. Not that that stops us trying.

Despite our sending out numerous press releases, comments with links, posts from my other blog, posts from others’ blogs, Facebook and Tweets and articles by John Rentoul at the Independent (he has posted here on Mr Brogan’s article) , the mainstream press steers carefully away from suggesting that perhaps Mr Blair’s weight and height should not be noted for the gentle peace & love hangers & floggers to do their worst.

The press’s behaviour has been outrageous in its negligence of balance and common sense as regards Tony Blair and the Iraq decisions. Outright abominable.

To repeat – Mr Rosenthal paid out of his own pocket for the article [correction] advertisement accompanying the article at the New Statesman in January 2010.  Mr Rosenthal has, once again paid for an ad in the NS this month, on the Ban Blair-Baiting petition.

He is not in the employ or under the direction or payment of Mr Blair. The same applies to all of us who write in the support of our great former prime minister.

So if the Telegraph is surprised to get a halo from this site which is outing the FERAL PRESS, let me say it won’t happen often. To any of them.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that almost the entire online commentariat could be so seduced by a Press Campaign against Blair into believing that they understand all there is to understand about Tony Blair’s decisions over Iraq.  And to know, uncorrected or unsanctioned by the press, how best to deal with him, trial or not.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

As for halos – the BBC might need to suffer a little more before they get theirs, as it were.

(See SHOCK NEWS: BBC – hinting – truth – Muslim Brotherhood)

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