'In
the build-up to the Iraq war I lost the ability to read due to diabetic
retinopathy. Instead I became a close listener. I heard Blair distort and
manipulate the English language so that, like Humpty Dumpty in Alice
Through the Looking-Glass, for him a word "means just what I choose it to
mean".
The
phrase "weapons of mass destruction" was ubiquitous. You knew he was talking it
up. He had been given a grain of sand by the intelligence services and didn't
stop talking it up until it was a boulder, hurtling, Tom
and Jerry-like, down a mountain, flattening everything in its path.
I
wept tears of shame, rage, and pity as British and American planes dropped their
"strategic" bombs over Baghdad. I wondered if Blair was sitting on a sofa with
his family watching shock and awe. Did they share a monster bag of Revels, and
could he look his children in the eye when the transmission was over? I have
never recovered from the shock of that night.
I
have been told my fixation with Blair and his involvement with the invasion of
Iraq is unhealthy – "that was all back in the day", get over it, "move forward".
But I can't. I am a professional cynic, or sceptic if you prefer, but deep
inside I romanticised the qualities of this country and its government. We had a
reputation in the world for the moderation of our political system, the fairness
of our judiciary, and, whether entitled to or not, we marched up the hill and
built a fortress on the moral high ground. That lies in ruins now.'
Sue
Townsend, writing in September 2010
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