Over the years we have pored over his every utterance for the word 'sorry'. Tagging on to Dubya's coat tails, 45-minute warnings, the suicide of poor hounded David Kelly, the whole Hutton fiasco, WMD & the illegal invasion.... all things which I suspect the nation as a whole, Labour or non-Labour, would have liked to hear the 'S' word dripping from those Prime Ministerial lips. There are those of us who just disliked the whole direction of travel in which TB took the Party (and the country). He doesn't have to apologise for that general direction. He never promised us socialism, and anyone who felt let down in that respect was not lied to, they were just deluding themselves. He could have survived all the rest of it, even the sleaze allegations which are still overshadowed by the Tories anyway, with his reputation intact. But Iraq was something else. On the night the 'shock and awe' began I told our constituency party meeting, "This will be Blair's legacy. The US and Britain can crush Saddam in a matter of weeks. Over 30 years ago the Israeli military might did the same to the Arab nations of the Middle East, but nearly 40 years later their army is no closer to a solution than they were in 1968. This war will be Blair and Bush's Vietnam." But even now, the Prime Minister says he has no regrets. Even now he will not admit that the whole WMD fiction was, if not a lie, a giant blunder. The closest we have seen to any form of apology for anything Blair has done in nine years is dressed up as justification. He says he should have 'gone further, sooner' with his modernisation agenda.
Well, I live in hope. This could be the start of something big... but I don't think I'll hold my breath.
