Friday, December 15, 2006
A Mixed Bag
Apologies for the lack of posting yesterday, but an unfortunate over indulgence in sleep meant I lacked the time slot to write. I'm rather disappointed as I seem to have missed Professor Canter's last article, but I'll maybe try it over the weekend, giving me the hat trick as it were.
The Times leads today here with the publication of Lord Stevens report into the death of Princess Diana. I've never been one for the conspiracy theories that abound this tragic event; mainly because I can't see how anyone would benefit from her death especially at that juncture in time.
Princess Diana had a very good public image and a lot of public support, even assuming that she was planning to and would have married Dodi Fayed, it is my view that this would have lost her quite a bit of public support. She would have been seen as someone who'd been married to Prince Charles and who was the mother to a future King, but who had "moved on", and this would have been reflected in how people would have thought about her.
My view is that from the point of view of the establishment, the best thing for them would have been for Princess Diana to re-marry especially to a figure unlikely to engender much public support. This unfortunate situation for me contrasts sharply with the death of Dr David Kelly and I'm not convinced that his death was indeed suicide.
This brings us nicely onto pages 2 and 3 of The Times where we have Mr Blair the Prime Minister securing his place in history by being the first prime minister holding office to be questioned by the police as part of a criminal investigation. The investigation of course not being into the death of Dr Kelly, but rather into the loans for lordship affair.
"Teflon Tony" wasn't arrested or interviewed under caution, or anything like that, he was merely "treated as a witness", so I suppose sort of "helping the police with their enquiries". According to the report he had no lawyer with him, although the report fails to mention that Mr Blair used to be a barrister, (a point I would have thought relevant) so perhaps he didn't feel the same need for legal advice that a non-lawyer might.
According to the report, these honours were "party peerages" and a spokesperson stated: "The honours were not therefore for public services but expressly party peerages given for party service. In these circumstances the fact that they have supported the party financially could not conceivably be a barrier to their nomination." Which is all very well and good but somehow ignores the main problem being of course: "it would be against the 1925 Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act to promise peerages in return for money."
I don't know where all this is going of course. It would have been ridiculous that the first interview with the Prime Minister would be anything other than what happened. I suspect it might end up like an episode of Columbo where he keeps going back to clear up a small minor point, and eventually the criminal is trapped. Of course I'm not saying that Mr Blair is a criminal, but obviously on the television, on Columbo, the whole point of the program is to find the culprit, and an unsuccessful investigation would fail to make an episode. So it could equally be that when they go back to clear up minor points, the Prime Minister emerges as whiter than white and we can all sleep safely in our beds.
Anyway I'm sure you'll all agree with me that the most important thing is for Mr Blair to have secured his place in history. Now this glorious accomplishment has been achieved, he can leave office safe in the knowledge we shall relish his legacy.
The Times leads today here with the publication of Lord Stevens report into the death of Princess Diana. I've never been one for the conspiracy theories that abound this tragic event; mainly because I can't see how anyone would benefit from her death especially at that juncture in time.
Princess Diana had a very good public image and a lot of public support, even assuming that she was planning to and would have married Dodi Fayed, it is my view that this would have lost her quite a bit of public support. She would have been seen as someone who'd been married to Prince Charles and who was the mother to a future King, but who had "moved on", and this would have been reflected in how people would have thought about her.
My view is that from the point of view of the establishment, the best thing for them would have been for Princess Diana to re-marry especially to a figure unlikely to engender much public support. This unfortunate situation for me contrasts sharply with the death of Dr David Kelly and I'm not convinced that his death was indeed suicide.
This brings us nicely onto pages 2 and 3 of The Times where we have Mr Blair the Prime Minister securing his place in history by being the first prime minister holding office to be questioned by the police as part of a criminal investigation. The investigation of course not being into the death of Dr Kelly, but rather into the loans for lordship affair.
"Teflon Tony" wasn't arrested or interviewed under caution, or anything like that, he was merely "treated as a witness", so I suppose sort of "helping the police with their enquiries". According to the report he had no lawyer with him, although the report fails to mention that Mr Blair used to be a barrister, (a point I would have thought relevant) so perhaps he didn't feel the same need for legal advice that a non-lawyer might.
According to the report, these honours were "party peerages" and a spokesperson stated: "The honours were not therefore for public services but expressly party peerages given for party service. In these circumstances the fact that they have supported the party financially could not conceivably be a barrier to their nomination." Which is all very well and good but somehow ignores the main problem being of course: "it would be against the 1925 Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act to promise peerages in return for money."
I don't know where all this is going of course. It would have been ridiculous that the first interview with the Prime Minister would be anything other than what happened. I suspect it might end up like an episode of Columbo where he keeps going back to clear up a small minor point, and eventually the criminal is trapped. Of course I'm not saying that Mr Blair is a criminal, but obviously on the television, on Columbo, the whole point of the program is to find the culprit, and an unsuccessful investigation would fail to make an episode. So it could equally be that when they go back to clear up minor points, the Prime Minister emerges as whiter than white and we can all sleep safely in our beds.
Anyway I'm sure you'll all agree with me that the most important thing is for Mr Blair to have secured his place in history. Now this glorious accomplishment has been achieved, he can leave office safe in the knowledge we shall relish his legacy.
Tags: justice, Labour, corruption
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
Labels: corruption, Labour
