Hey, UK- When will you learn the Blair/Hutton info?

[RainDog]

Does Blair already have the report?

Will he face Parliament on Tuesday? Anyone have any speculations on what is in the report?

Do any of you think this will create the momentum for a vote of confidence?

Will Hoon resign?

Has the BBC absorbed the blows?

And when will the BCCI trial be back in the dockets?

[Must_B_Free]

1. And what of David Kelley

Isn't it clear now with O'neill's revelations that Kelley was murdered?

[aquart]

2. Not to me. What did I miss?

Haven't read the book. Is it in there? What?

[Must_B_Free]

3. The fact that they were trying to build a case to attack

there was no clear and present danger - it had to be invented.

Clearly, Kelley had sexed up the document on command of his superiors, so he had to be eliminated before he could be bordered to reveal who told him to do it.

The idea that he didn't sex up the reports would have had him killing himself for absolutely no reason.

The idea that he could have sexed up the reports for his own edification is mad.

I suppose he could have taken his own life, knowing he would be rubbed out by someone anyway, but that a minor difference in scenario anyway.

[Ekova]

4. January 28th, 2004

All parties involved get a copy of the report either 12 or 24 hours before official release to the public.

[Spentastic]

5. My two penneth

Does Blair already have the report?

Well he shouldn't have. However, his bombastic displays in Parliament of late would lead me to believe that he knows he will not be fatally damaged. How he knows such a thing remains a mystery. Tony has enough friends in high places to find out most things.

Will he face Parliament on Tuesday? Anyone have any speculations on what is in the report?

Well he has said that he will. This is one of the reasons I believe he knows what the report will say.

Do any of you think this will create the momentum for a vote of confidence?

In short, no. Unless the report says "Tony Blair is a liar and is directly responsible for the death of Kelly" he'll weasel his way out of blame as he always does. I don't think he'll even be significantly damaged. The Parliamentary Labour party has been rendered entirely toothless by Tony and his minions.

Will Hoon resign?

No. The man is brazen. He has survived this long and he has upped the stakes again teeling people that Kelly was "no martyr"

Has the BBC absorbed the blows?

New Labour hate the BBC, they wish to destroy it and they'll try again to renegotiate the charter this year. I hope they fail.

And when will the BCCI trial be back in the dockets?

Unfortunately, most people don't care about it. Jordan may get hers tits out, that's more likely to be front page news.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

6. But what if Jodie Marsh gets her tits out first ....?!

I'm expecting Alistair Campbell to go on a marathon of TV/Radio studios & press interviews declaring the evilness of Auntie & the righteousness of New Labour. John Humphrey's will get uppity for a day, George Foulkes (who's just announced he's retiring) will scream bias from the rooftops, nobody will pay any attention to the debate in parliament & it will be a brilliant day "to bury bad news". Nobody will actually read the report except Robin Cook.

I'm holding firm in my (probably completely misguided) belief that Hutton hasn't leaked to Blair et al. But I also believe that even if he accuses Blair of lying (or even Kevin Tebbit for that matter), Blair will find some linguistically bullshit way of weaseling out of any criticism.

I'm more optimistic about Hoon going (but boy do I wish that Blunkett or Straw were involved in this), but I do get the feeling that he has no wish to bite the bullet. (I also have this nightmare that Mandleson will come back into the cabinet.)

[Spentastic]

7. If Jodie gets em out

All bets are off.

Tony Blair could be caught buggering Peter Mandelson against his will and the papers would talk still about how Jordan is better than Jodie model cos she takes it up the Gary.

I'm just a miserable bastard. I reckon that Hutton will kind of blame no one and everyone.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

8. Ditto on the "pox on all your houses"

But hey -- we live in "Offical Secrets Act" land & without being allowed into the bowels of the DIS & SIS there was no way that Hutton was going to get to the political truth of our intelligence in Iraq.

I do hope though that he has more to say on the Mi5 investigation of Kelly (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/kelly/story/0,13747,1031946,00.html) & the extreme unease our top brass had over Iraq (see page 80 http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/bbc/bbc_6_0011to0090.pdf ), but this mild optimism is most certainly without any foundation.

[Minstrel Boy]

9. Here's a good blog devoted to Kelly and the Hutton inquiry:

http://www.deadscientists.blogspot.com/

[RainDog]

10. What do you think general public opinion is about

the "dodgy dossier?"

--or maybe that's silly to ask with the possibility of mamma-glama girls showing flesh.

[Spentastic]

11. Jesus wept

There was an enlightening poll for C4 news last week that indicated that the majority of Britons thought that Tony Blair was a self serving liar. The same majority also said they would vote for him again.

The general public just really don't care that they were lied to. The fear of a Tory planet still has enough inertia to deflect lots of criticism from New Labour.

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the dumbing down of Britain is almost complete. The Government will use Hutton as an excuse to trash the BBC and we'll be one step closer to Tony's wet dream corporatcracy.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

13. I don't suppose you watched the last

Bremner, Bird & Fortune (I think it was called "Trust Me, I'm A Prime Minister")?

The opening focus group sketch summed up my attitude towards British politics quite nicely & I couldn't believe it was actually reinforced by that poll last week.

People were sat around a table, raving about how Blair was a liar, how he'd betrayed Labour principles & basically is a reckless megalomaniac & they've never met anyone who likes him. Then when asked who they think will win the next election, they all say "Blair -- in a landslide".

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

12. I think people here are pretty entrenched in their views

They either think that Blair lied to us over the war, or they think that the war was wholly justified & couldn't give a rats ass if Blair had to invent a few WMD's to get the grumbling liberals on board.

The current mini-scandal --- equiptment getting to the front line troops -- could escalate if more people come forward, or if Samantha Robertson (who's giving a press conference I believe in the next few minutes) continues her campaign. Also bubbling up is the trial of Katherine Gun, though I doubt that'll get beyond a few mentions in the Guardian/Observer.

The thing is though -- the new series of "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here" starts a week today -- & given that Jordan's in it, that'll take out the front pages of the tabloids for 2 weeks.

That said, given that a quarter of us believe that Diana was murdered, I'd be interested to see how many people believe David Kelly was done in. (I'm clutching at a memory, but I believe I read a poll that had the figure at 10% back in the Summer).

The greatest problem here though is that with complex subjects (& especially recently BCCI & reopening of the death of Roberto Calvi) if they make the news, they only get a cursory mention so never fully enter the public debate. (Unlike Diana & Jordan!)

[RainDog]

14. "Done in" or not..

it seems to me that the way Kelly was attacked and pressured is an important issue, simply because this was done for the purpose of covering up lies about the rationale for a war which, from what we could see over here, did NOT have the support of a huge, vocal group of Brits.

On this side of the Atlantic, the impression I've gotten is that many more people in the UK are vocal about their opposition to Blair's support of Bush.

...and the polls we got on Brit support of Bush were very nicely "deconstructed" here to show they were a fine example of media spin.

someone posted on this site a while back who was from New Zealand, who talked about the take over of the labour party by operatives...sort of like having Lieberman, here, presented as the beacon of progressive liberalism...

So has the UK been co-opted, too?