Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Let me just start by saying I'm not usually one to bang on about all this, I'm not totally knowledgable with the ins and outs of the middle Eastern crisis over the past 2 decades...but FFS why on earth did tony Blair give up 2-3 hours of serious negotiating time yesterday to talk with a Tabloid TV presenter and an audience whose attitude was, in general, an irreversible lack of reasonable debate. Its not their views that stank, it was the way they ranted rather than debated the issues. All at a time when the 18th resolution is yet to be finalised (as if it will even go ahead now).

I thought that Tony Blair would have had more chance of getting his views across to an obnoxious drunk rather than to the rather specialised audience that were picked more for the shock value for ratings rather than the good of the country. The slow hand clap at the end probably was rehearsed beforehand and the producers probably had the Que cards ready FFS. Or am I too cynical?

ITV is only good for football, in keeping with the tabloid charter.

unclebuck

Was that the one with the slow handclap at the end??

Typical bunch of ITV morons. Wouldn't have expected anything else really As you say, I don't know why he bothers with people like that.

hail-hail

Totally agree, they can take their slow hand clap and ram it.
It was totally rehearsed, i.e. no matter what was said, they wanted to show displeasure.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

No 10 asked for an all female anti-war audience

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

STI,

If that were true then Clare Short would have turned up

Well No 10 certainly got that. They knew it wasn't going to be a walk in the park but then again not a blind alley either.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

Is she female?

scoobynutta555

Who would i rather have running the country Clare Short with her left wing nonsense approach or Tony Blair? Thats a tough one lol.

A nice little quote from the last Gulf war from the Guardian:

Gulf War: Short quits front bench in protest

Patrick Wintour
Tuesday January 15, 1991

Simmering divisions inside the Labour Party broke into the open last night when Clare Short quit the opposition front bench after criticising the party's support for the allied bombing campaign in Iraq.
Asked by the Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, not to speak outside her social security portfolio, Ms Short, 45 today, said that 'she could not stick with it'.

Last night she said on BBC television: 'It's the nature of the bombing that I'm worried about. People not having water and food it's got nothing to do with the liberation of Kuwait.'

Stevie

I have to confess that I think Tony Blair and the muppet collective (cabinet) have been a total pile off poo since elected. I do fully agree with his views on Iraq and also dont understand why he is bothering doing interviews with a group of ********.

CarpetCleaner

I expected better of ITV

scoobynutta555

while im here lol another interview just before the tories got stuffed by possibly the biggest landslide ever in UK politics

Short flays Blair's 'dark men'

David Hencke
Thursday August 8, 1996

Clare Short , the controversial shadow cabinet minister, last night accused her leader's advisers of jeopardising Labour's chance of victory at the general election and threatening its existence. She accused them - the 'people in the dark' - of trying to portray Tony Blair as an unprincipled 'macho man' instead of the 'fresh, principled and decent' person who took over from the late John Smith.
'If we don't win, it will be the end of Labour as a party of power at least for a generation, if not for ever,' she said in a highly critical interview in the New Statesman



Truely a woman with her finger on the pulse of British politics

^Qwerty^

This dropping of x thousand bombs in 48hrs is probably a load of crap. I expect to wake up one morning rather soon and hear "British and US troops are half way to Baghdad", rather than "a massive aerial bombardment of Iraq began last night".

The aerial bombardment began weeks ago.

As for the program last night, I found it quiet annoying, and as pointed out earlier by various people, I don't understand why Tony is wasting his time taking to such people. Okay a couple of them were okay, but I'd class most of them as extremists. That silly student NUS type was well out of her depth as well. No doubt she'll be in the cabinet in 15 years.

Holy Ghost

shrek's right, downing street did ask for an audience of female sceptics.

ended up with an audience of stop the war coalitionists. so under the circs, i think jay's right. waste of two hours+ of pministerial time. not to mention a stitch-up.

while i have all the sympathy in the world for the three ladies who lost partners or family in WTC/bali, selecting them for the audience was rankly exploitative. the producers *knew* that one or more would start to get choked: great television, eh ITV? you w@ankers; knew that they would talk from an entirely emotional standpoint based on their utter grief and loss. utterly inappropriate for a topic like this, one that requires a clear objective head and a firm grasp of the facts.

despite all this, i thought blair handled it relatively well in the face of implacable and blind opposition. however, he not only looks shagged but the frustration that (some) people simply will not believe him is beginning to show.

he mentioned his main motivation - that of preventing the convergence of rogue-state developed WMD with extremist terrorism -perhaps three times. and more than one participant still said "i don't understand why?"

it's very simple and easy to understand. the logic to the equation of threat is rock solid. i have no idea what planet they come from.

eyes wide shut: ears folded closed. waste of time trying to convert the unconvertible. it's like trying to have a reasoned debate with a certain type of cossie driver

i just cannot believe that labour has burned so much public trust that on an international issue of profound importance that equals 9/11 and the last Gulf War, people are just petulantly and ignorantly thinking - "don't believe you!"

i'm more inclined to believe that the media is covertly taking sides and skewing the argument to push an anti-war stance. because a government under pressure always makes good TV and sells newspapers. plus of course, the UK broadcast media is rotten to the core with pseudo-intellectual, trouser-climbing, biased leftie bennboys.

[rant...and relax]

AnDy_PaNdY

Well said

moses

i missed it wonder what the fuss was about , is their gonna be a repeat

Josh L

Whether you agree with his stance or not, the fact remains that a majority of the country is against war. Tony B Liar knew what he was doing, and was hoping to convert a few. The fact is that he was always going to get a hiding. Personally, I think he was arrogant enough to believe he could change peoples minds.

As for the papers, of course the taking sides, and as usual they will be taking sides based on what they feel is the current mood of the public.

Josh

A bloke from Starbucks

The London Evening Standard had a very good article yesterday. I didn't know the extent to which France and Russia are dependant on ties with Iraq. Neither did i know that Iraq has the second biggest oil reserves in the world (much, much more valuable than the cost of a war HG). I can try and find an online version if any one is interested...?

SWRTWannabe

Tony must really be p!ssing himself with laughter - he can go to war when the majority of the country are opposed to it, and he's still got more chance of being voted in at the next election than the conservatives

CarpetCleaner

JoshL

How do you know if the majority is against?

Just thought I'd ask

Oh and Holy Ghost, as I've said before you ought to be an MP mate, a voice of reason and sense amongst the 'uneducated' tree hugging feckwits with no knowedge of historical precedence

blimey that sounds good for me, took me ages to string that together