TONY BLAIR : FETTES FAG


Part Fourteen | 2014-2018


Ex-Tony Blair Adviser Is New Boss At UK Spy-Hive GCHQ

By Kelly Fiveash / 15.04.2014

GCHQ's eavesdropping concrete doughnut in Cheltenham is getting a new boss from autumn this year, the government confirmed today.

Robert Hannigan is set to replace Sir Ian Lobban, who has been in the post for nearly six years...

The new man was appointed by Foreign Secretary William Hague with the blessing of Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg...

...Gloucestershire-born Hannigan.. previously had the ear of one-time Labour PM Tony Blair, whom he advised on Northern Ireland's peace process.

He later headed up Blighty's national security strategy in 2007 under Blair, and appears on the steering group for the Cabinet Office's 2008 review of the government's handling of personal data... At the time, Hannigan was Head of Security, Intelligence and Resilience, at the Cabinet Office...

theregister.co.uk


Pressure Mounts On Tony Blair To Answer Questions Over Minister Child Sex Abuse Cover-Up Claims

By Tom Pettifor / 29.04.2014

Pressure mounted on Tony Blair tonight to answer questions over the Mirror's revelations that a child sex abuse probe was axed after a minister in his government was named as a suspect.

MPs joined forces with a victim of abuse to call on the former Prime Minister to reveal if he knew about the alleged cover up of any allegations against the politician.

The demands followed our story that an ex-social services boss told the police in 1998 the Blair minister made evening visits to a children's home in Lambeth, south London, run by paedophile Michael John Carroll in the 1980s.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said yesterday that he would not comment...

Experienced detective Clive Driscoll was removed from the investigation into abuse in Lambeth children's homes and given other duties in 1998 after he named the Blair minister as a suspect..

The Mirror


Kincora Scandal : I Will Reveal The Secrets, Says Ex-Army Officer Colin Wallace

By Liam Clarke / 17.07.2014

A former Army captain says he is prepared to tell an official inquiry how attempts to expose child abuse at the Kincora Boys' Home were blocked by MI5.

Colin Wallace, a psychological warfare expert who served in the Army during the Troubles, says he and a number of other retired officers would be prepared to give evidence.

It follows calls for the east Belfast home to be included in a Government inquiry into child sex abuse. In 1981 three senior care staff at the home were jailed for abusing 11 boys.

Mr Wallace feels the inquiry could be the last chance to find out the truth of what happened at Kincora.

He said: "David Cameron has said no stone will be left unturned in uncovering child sex abuse rings in the 1970s and 1980s.

Well, I can tell him there was a lot of information on Kincora, but people who know about it are dying and files may be destroyed..."

Mr Wallace stated: "When I was working with military intelligence the Army did want to expose Kincora but MI5 didn't. That led me to the conclusion that MI5 had some extra interest..."

Since leaving the Army he said he had been told that boys from Kincora were being taken to Brighton to be abused.

While in the Army he believed well-connected paedophiles were using the home, including Sir Knox Cunningham, who was parliamentary private secretary to former PM Harold Macmillan.

The abuse allegations in the home centred around a secretive loyalist paramilitary organisation known as Tara.. largely made up of Orange Order members...

In 1973 Capt Wallace prepared a briefing paper for journalists which set out allegations about Tara and its role in homosexual activity in Kincora and named Sir Knox...

Belfast Telegraph


Probe Into Historic Sex Abuse At Fettes College

By Alistair Grant / 13.03.2016

Fettes College - which boasts former Prime Minister Tony Blair among its famous alumni - is understood to be at the centre of decades-old allegations of sexual misconduct by former staff.

The claims make it just the latest of Scotland's most prestigious schools to be implicated in a historic abuse scandal.

Merchiston Castle.. in the south west of the Capital, has seen two former members of staff charged with sexual offences committed in the 1960s.  

Meanwhile, a former physics teacher at Gordonstoun school in Moray has appeared in court accused of crimes dating back to the 1980s.

It is understood the allegations at Fettes relate to incidents that stretch back to the mid-1980s.

It was reported over the weekend that names passed to police are believed to include some individuals linked to the so-called "Magic Circle" scandal of the early 1990s...

...The school was unavailable for comment at time of going to press. However, a spokesman was reported in a Sunday newspaper to say: "Police have carried out investigations into allegations of non-recent abuse. Fettes College have co-operated fully with their inquiries."...

Edinburgh Evening News


Four Students Expelled From Tony Blair's Old Private School After Drink And Drugs Party

By Thomas Brown / 31.05.2016

...The 15-year-olds were expelled from £33,000-a-year Fettes College in Edinburgh following the off-campus alcohol and cannabis binge.

It is understood they also rubbed a legal high called Snooze into their gums.

The secret party was discovered when one of the teens fell and burst his nose as he got off a busy bus in the city centre.

Last night a source said chiefs are furious that another drugs scandal has hit the school where former PM Tony Blair was a pupil.

The source said "The four boys involved had been taking the drugs at the weekend and were in town when one of them fell getting off a bus.

He was so out of it he was struggling to walk.

When he fell he broke his nose and needed to be treated for it.

When they got back to the college school staff realised they had all been drinking and taking drugs.

Some of them had also been using fake ID"...

The source added "The headmaster went mental and expelled the four boys for breaking the rules.

Another group who had also been taking the bevvy and drugs have been 'gated'...

There is a real culture at Fettes of kids drinking and using drugs - they all have money and have lots of time on their hands, especially at the weekends...

Most of the boys involved are rugby players and have represented the school at various events and play rugby for well established teams.

When this news broke the school were keen to try and keep it hushed up as the last thing they want is another drugs scandal.

Since the boys have been expelled it's the talk of the school.

The school management will be gutted that the press have got a hold of it"...

The Sun


Take It From A Whistleblower : Chilcot's Jigsaw Puzzle Is Missing A Few Pieces

By Katherine Gun / 08.07.2016 

Following the damning Chilcot report, much will be said about the decision to go to war in Iraq. But one thing will be missing: the information I leaked in the run-up to the war. It won't get an airing because I was never questioned or asked to participate in the Chilcot inquiry.

Back in early 2013, Tony Blair was keen to secure UN backing for a resolution that would authorise the use of force against Iraq. I was a linguist and analyst at GCHQ when, on 31 Jan 2003, I along with dozens of others in GCHQ, received an email from a senior official at the National Security Agency. It said the agency was "mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN security council (UNSC) members", and that it wanted "the whole gamut of information that could give US policy makers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises."

In other words, the US planned to use intercepted communications of the security council delegates.. principally directed at the six swing nations.. Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea and Pakistan...

I was furious when I read that email and leaked it. Soon afterwards, when the Observer ran a front-page story: "US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war", I confessed to the leak and was arrested...

I believed that on receiving the email, UK parliamentary members might question the urgency and motives of the war hawks, and demand further deliberations and scrutiny...

Chilcot's report does not apportion blame. But it does provide ample evidence of what many of us knew all along: this was an illegal war, that military intervention was by no means a last resort, that all avenues were not exhausted and that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the UK. Furthermore, the post-invasion plan for Iraq looked like it had been scribbled on the back of a beer mat. Blair was warned by the intelligence services that the threat levels to the UK would increase, that Iraqi weapons would fall into the hands of al-Qaida. The consequences of his lack of concern about these things can be felt to this day...

The Guardian


Two Top Public Schools Attended By Prince Charles And Tony Blair Are Investigated As Part Of A Major Inquiry Into Child Abuse

By Graham Grant and Eleanor Harding / 01.02.2017

...Gordonstoun, the alma mater of the heir to the throne, and Fettes College - where the former Labour Prime Minister was a pupil - both feature in the statutory probe.

Other private schools under investigation include Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh, Loretto School in Musselburgh and Morrison's Academy in Crieff.

The boarding schools are being probed as part of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry into more than 60 residential care establishments which have been identified as sites of alleged child abuse or neglect...

More than 100 locations where abuse is said to have taken place have been pinpointed by the inquiry, which was set up by the Scottish Government and launched in October 2015.

A forthcoming publicity drive will see posters in bus shelters and advertising abroad to encourage more victims to come forward...

Daily Mail


Portraits Of Shame : The Paedophile Paintings Which Disgrace Scotland's Elite Private Schools

By Vicky Allan / 09.07.2017

STAFF, pupils and parents at Scotland's most prestigious private schools are starting to look with a mixture of horror and dismay at the portraits which line the walls of some of the most expensive teaching establishments in the country... as some are the paintings of teachers who used their high-powered and high-salaried positions to sexually abuse the children under their control.

At top Edinburgh private school, Erskine Stewart's Melville Schools, a portrait of a former headteacher has just been removed from the walls after it was revealed that its subject, Norman Baker, had been convicted in 1945 of indecent acts against young boys and sent to prison for two years.

Meanwhile, a plaque dedicated to another headmaster, whose reputation has been plagued by stories of abuse, remains hanging at the famed Edinburgh public school, Fettes College, despite angered complaints from parents...

...Several times in the past few decades requests have been made for the removal of a plaque which hangs in the chapel of the Edinburgh private school Fettes College, which is dedicated to the former headmaster Anthony Chenevix-Trench. Though no abuse stories have yet emerged regarding Chenevix-Trench's time at Fettes, there are many from his previous positions at Bradfield and Shrewsbury, and it is now widely believed his approach to flogging is what lay behind him being forced to leave Eton.. prior to coming to Fettes. Former pupils claim he masturbated while beating them...

..Alex Renton, author of Stiff Upper Lip: Secrets, Crimes And The Schooling Of A Ruling Class, said:

"At Fettes many people, staff, parents and children, know the reputation of the man whose portrait hangs in pride of place in their front hall. Chenevix-Trench was a vicious sadist and sexual abuser who would be locked up if he was alive today - he might well have been then.

The establishment knew all about him: he had abused children and his position as headmaster at four of the country's most famous schools. My research shows that in 1970 the Fettes governors were warned by their equivalents at Eton - who had effectively sacked him - not to give him the headmastership. But Fettes ignored the advice, just as the governors today have ignored the pleas of Chenevix-Trench's victims to stop celebrating him..

The school is a charity. Its job is the care of children. It is under investigation over historic child abuse by both Scottish police and the independent inquiry: yet it persists in celebrating this vicious child abuser on its walls. What does that say to children there now?"

Scottish Herald


Tony Blair In Wonderland

By Kenneth Surin / 30.08.2017

Tony Blair is clearly a piece of work. Incidentally, I've known about him for decades before he became well-known.

Blair went to Fettes, the Scottish equivalent of the elite private school Eton...

A good friend of mine during my undergrad days in the late 60s/early 70s had the misfortune (his term) to attend Fettes the same time as Blair.

My Old Fettesian undergraduate friend, like me a future university teacher, moved in very different circles from Blair at Fettes.. who at that time had seeming thespian aspirations and gloried in the nickname "Emma".

My friend was unable to tell me how this nickname came to be bestowed on the future prime minister...

counterpunch.org


Posh Edinburgh School Pupil Expelled After Turning Up At Chapel Service On Ecstacy Bender

By Record Reporter / 19.09.2017

...The 16-year-old was rushed to hospital from the prestigious Fettes College in Edinburgh after his behaviour aroused suspicion during the service.

He recovered after being released and reported to police after more of the class A drug was understood to have been found in his room.

In a statement, headmaster Geoffrey Stanford said: "The use of a class A substance has shocked both pupils and staff. We are, however, in no way complacent and know this is a national issue. It is one which we treat very seriously."

The school, which counts former Prime Minister Tony Blair among its past pupils, was revealed as the most expensive independent school in Scotland last month...

Daily Record


By Paul Joseph Watson / 04.01.2018

Tony Blair is a sociopath who led my country into the most disastrous war in recent history.

A war that led to a ruined country, a destabilized continent, around 1 million dead and the rise of ISIS.

Why on earth is anyone still listening to him?

@PrisonPlanet


Top Edinburgh School Removes Ex-Head's Portrait Amid Sex Abuse Inquiry

By Shan Ross / 25.03.2018

A leading private school has removed a portrait of one of its former headmasters from its Great Hall, ahead of a major inquiry into historical sexual abuse claims against him.

Fettes College in Edinburgh have taken the action as the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry looks into allegations against Anthony Chenevix-Trench following allegations he would beat pupils for his own sexual gratification.

The school. whose alumni include former Prime Minister Tony Blair, has also carried out its own internal investigation over the claims.

Chenevix-Trench was appointed to his post at Fettes in 1971 and remained until his death in 1979, aged 60.

David Blackie, 71, who claims to have endured brutal sadism from Chenevix-Trench, campaigned for the school to remove the portrait.

A statement released by Fettes' governors said: "We have no information to suggest that any crime was committed by Mr Chenevix-Trench while at Fettes.

However, as we have reported to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, his specific judgment in handling two specific matters did not measure up to the excellent pastoral care we pride ourselves on at Fettes today."

The Scotsman  


Tony Blair's Former School, Fettes College In Edinburgh, Removes Tributes To Abusers

By Marcello Mega / 26.03.2018

One of the UK's best-known independent schools has started to distance itself from two of the most celebrated figures in its history as it braces for revelations from the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.

Fettes College in Edinburgh, which counts Tony Blair among its old boys, has removed from the chapel a plaque to Ronald Selby Wright, its most famous former chaplain, once described by the school's historian as the former prime minister's spiritual mentor.

The school has also removed a portrait in the great hall and a plaque in the chapel commemorating former headmaster Anthony Chenevix-Trench...

The Times


Tony Blair Confirms Receiving Millions In Donation From Saudi

06.09.2018

Tony Blair's relationship with Saudi Arabia has come under scrutiny following the revelation that the non-government organisation set up under his name has received millions of pounds from Riyadh.

Accounts published yesterday by the Tony Blair Institute confirmed earlier reports that Blair had received donations of up to $12 million from the Kingdom.

The Saudi donation, according to the Financial Times, comes from an organisation called Media Investment Limited (MIL), which is a subsidiary of Saudi Research and Marketing Group, registered in Guernsey...

Following the revelations, questions were raised over some of the Institute's decisions, including Blair himself, who supported UK intervention in Syria; a policy that would have primarily benefited the Saudi-backed opposition groups.

Blair's Institute also wrote flattering articles about Bin Salman during the crown prince's visit to the UK.. "Britain should learn from Saudi Arabia and how it has demonstrated a clear commitment to tackling the politicisation of Islam to inform policymaking," one article read...

middleeastmonitor.com

TONY BLAIR : FETTES FAG


Part Thirteen | 2005-2009


The 2005 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005..

The Labour campaign emphasised a strong economy; however, Blair had suffered a decline in popularity, which was exacerbated by the decision to send British troops to invade Iraq in 2003...

Tony Blair was returned as Prime Minister, with Labour having 355 MPs, but with a popular vote of 35.2%; the lowest of any majority government in UK electoral history. In terms of votes, they were only narrowly ahead of the Conservatives, but still had a comfortable lead in terms of seats...

Wikipedia


The 2007 Labour Party leadership election was formally triggered on 10 May 2007 by the resignation of Tony Blair, Labour Leader..

Informal campaigning had been ongoing ever since Tony Blair's original announcement in 2004 that he would not be fighting a fourth general election as leader. Pressure for a timetable eventually led him to announce on 7 September 2006 that he would step down within a year.. Nominations opened on 14 May and closed.. on 17 May.

Blair said he expected Gordon Brown to succeed him, and that Brown "would make an excellent Prime Minister". From the start most observers considered Brown the overwhelming favourite to succeed Blair; John McDonnell, his only challenger, failed to secure enough nominations in order to get onto the ballot and conceded defeat to Gordon Brown...

...On 27 June, Tony Blair resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and was succeeded as Prime Minister by Gordon Brown...

Wikipedia


Report: NSA Kept File On Tony Blair's 'Private Life' And Intercepted Iraqi President's 'Pillow Talk'

Matt Corley / November 24 2008

In October, ABC News reported that despite President Bush's promises that the National Security Administration's warrantless wiretapping program was aimed only at terrorists, the NSA frequently listened to and transcribed the private phone calls of Americans abroad. The network's report was based on whistleblower interviews with two former military intercept operators.

One of the whistleblowers, former Navy Arab linguist David Murfee Faulk, told ABC News that he and his co-workers listened in on "hundreds of Americans" over the years:

'Another intercept operator... David Murfee Faulk, 39, said he and his fellow intercept operators listened into hundreds of Americans picked up using phones in Baghdad's Green Zone from late 2003 to November 2007.

"Calling home to the United States, talking to their spouses, sometimes their girlfriends, sometimes one phone call following another," said Faulk...'

But it wasn't just ordinary Americans. In a new report today, Faulk tells ABC that during his time working for the government, "U.S. Intelligence swooped on the private lives of two of America's most important allies in fighting al Qaeda: British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Iraq's first interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer":

'David Murfee Faulk told ABCNews.com he saw and read a file on Blair's "private life" and heard "pillow talk" phone calls of al-Yawer when he worked as an Army Arab linguist assigned to a secret NSA facility at Fort Gordon, Georgia between 2003 and 2007...'

Though "collecting information on foreign leaders is a legal and common practice of intelligence agencies around the world", former intelligence officials tell ABC News that the U.S. and Britain have a long-standing agreement "not to collect on each other":

'The NSA works extremely closely and shares data with its British counterpart, the GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters.

"If it is true that we maintained a file on Blair, it would represent a huge breach of the agreement we have with the Brits", said one former CIA official...'...

thinkprogress.org


Dope Kids Expelled By Fettes

Daily Record / November 18 2009   

Four pupils from one of Scotland's poshest schools have been expelled for smoking pot. They were kicked out of Fettes College in Edinburgh - whose former pupils include Tony Blair - after an investigation by staff.    

A further 15 kids at the £23,000-a-year school were suspended.

Senior staff at the boarding school were tipped off about the hash-smoking gang by pupils.

Fettes is known for its zero tolerance approach to drug-taking and, in the past, head teacher Michael Spens criticised moves to make possession of cannabis a non-arrestable offence.

He claimed the decision by Blair's government would confuse young people.

Last night, Spens said: "While it is highly regrettable that a small minority of pupils have shown very poor judgment, their actions must not be allowed to detract from the highly laudable achievements of the school as a whole."

In 2002, three sixth-form pupils were expelled from Fettes for smoking cannabis.

One later claimed "an awful lot" of pupils at the school regularly used drugs.

TONY BLAIR : FETTES FAG


Part Twelve | 2002-2003 


Attack On Iraq Rejected By 2 In 3 Voters

By Benedict Brogan 

Tony Blair and Labour will suffer a potentially catastrophic loss of support if Britain joins American military action against Iraq, a poll commissioned by The Telegraph says today. 

More than two-thirds of British voters believe that a potential attack on Saddam Hussein is not justified in present circumstances, according to the internet pollster YouGov. 

The survey shows that Labour voters would reconsider their support for the government if Mr Blair sent troops into action against Iraq.

It found widespread unease about President George Bush's ability to handle the crisis. More than half feared that Mr Blair was becoming Mr Bush's "poodle"...

...The YouGov poll found that three-quarters of respondents believed that Saddam was a threat to world peace.

But there was widespread doubt about whether American action to topple him would succeed: only 13 per cent thought it would; three times as many thought the chances were "poor".

Sixty-two per cent of respondents thought that military action could result in a wider war in the Middle East and 90 per cent feared Islamic terrorist retaliation against the West...

The Telegraph / 12.08.2002


Fettes Old Boys Defend Ex-Teacher Accused Of Sex Abuse

FORMER Fettes College students - including a High Court judge - have rushed to the defence of a former teacher accused of sexual misconduct with boys.

Scotland on Sunday recently revealed that Charles Whittle, who taught Tony Blair history, left the school following allegations including fondling boys while he caned them, watching children on the toilet and becoming aroused while meting out corporal punishment.

Whittle, who died recently, left the school in the early 1970s. Fettes declined to comment on the allegations, saying they "pertained to another era".

But former Fettes pupils, including Lord MacLean, one of the judges at the Lockerbie trial and Harry Reid, former editor of the Herald, have now rallied around their former teacher, saying they do not have any recollection of him ever behaving in an inappropriate manner...

Paul Cheetham, secretary to the Old Fettesian Society and former English teacher at the school, said he wanted to set the record straight in the light of the allegations.

"He was an idiosyncratic man with idiosyncratic habits which he kept until he died.

"At school he used to reward good work by giving pupils Polos. He had a real thing about palindromic dates, and even when he left, old pupils used to write to him on dates such as 9/9/99 claiming their Polos."

Scotland on Sunday quoted several former pupils who alleged Whittle had behaved inappropriately towards children.

Sources said sixth formers at the school attempted to deliver a petition to the headmaster complaining about Whittle's conduct but it disappeared after the teacher was tipped off by a colleague.

The Scotsman / 03.11.2002


Tony Blair : The US Poodle?

By Rob Watson

"America's Poodle" is the insult of choice hurled by critics of Tony Blair for his support of President Bush.

It's not, it has to be said, a particularly original insult. [*]

I've heard it used against previous British governments during previous international crises...

Certainly in the case of Iraq, it's an insult that appears quite wide of the mark...

bbc.co.uk / 31.01.2003


Blair Battles "Poodle" Jibes

By Nick Assinder

...Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy.. twice pressed the prime minister to declare, if push came to shove, which route he would take - the US one or the UN one.

Would he stick with Europe or walk off with America?

Mr Kennedy, who likes to think he is speaking for the majority of the electorate on this issue, was touching on the jibe which falls readily to so many lips.

"Tony Blair is no more than George Bush's poodle".

It is a jibe that stings the Prime Minister and which he is desperate to nail. But he is fighting an uphill battle.

Each time he is asked whether the president is as committed as he is to seeking a second UN resolution before bombing Baghdad, he always says "yes" before quickly explaining the reasons why it may be necessary to go ahead without one.

The trouble with this line is, quite simply, a large number of people do not believe it.

bbc.co.uk / 03.02.2003


JEREMY PAXMAN:

So when people say you're a poodle..

TONY BLAIR:  

Yeah, well you know, you can do that and be the Right Hon Member for Texas and all that. Look, it depends whether you want to try and make sense of what are difficult issues.

Now look, I'm faced with a situation here where you know, we know the history of Iraq, we know these weapons of mass destruction. We can see in our own country for example what is happening with the problems of international terrorism. I simply tell you, you can believe it, don't believe it.

Now hang on a minute. I just want to finish this thing. Because this is the reason I'm doing what I'm doing, even though I know that it is difficult and unpopular in certain quarters.

It is a matter of time before these issues of chemical biological nuclear weapons which are now increasingly easy to get hold of with irresponsible, unstable states proliferating them.

It is a question of time before that comes together with international terrorism in a devastating way for this country and other countries in the world...

BBC TV interview Newsnight  / 06.02.2003


Iraq War

The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict that began in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition that overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein.. An estimated 151,000 to 600,000 or more Iraqis were killed in the first 3-4 years of conflict... The invasion occurred as part of a declared war against international terrorism and its sponsors under the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush following the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The invasion began on 20 March 2003, with the U.S. joined by the United Kingdom and several coalition allies, launching a "shock and awe" bombing campaign. Iraqi forces were quickly overwhelmed as U.S. forces swept through the country. The invasion led to the collapse of the Ba'athist government; Saddam was captured.. in December.. and executed.. three years later. However, the power vacuum following Saddam's demise and the mismanagement of the occupation led to widespread sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis, as well as a lengthy insurgency against U.S. and coalition forces...

The Bush administration based its rationale for the war principally on the assertion that Iraq... possessed weapons of mass destruction and that the Iraqi government posed an immediate threat to the United States and the coalition allies.. After the invasion, no substantial evidence was found to verify the initial claims about WMDS, while claims of Iraqi officials collaborating with al-Qaeda were proven false...

Wikipedia


Homosexuality was a non-topic in the mid 1960s when (John) McKeague was publicly stirring up hatred around Shankhill with young men at his side. Within the higher echelons of Unionism, there was a secret homosexual world that McKeague had access to. Sir Knox Cunningham, an Establishment figure and Westminster MP, was at the centre of a paedophile ring that held parties at a house in an English seaside resort. Boys and young men from the lower social classes in Northern Ireland were taken to these parties. Knox Cunningham was a friend of the well-known homosexual, Sir Anthony Blunt, the keeper of the Queen's pictures, who was eventually unmasked as a Soviet spy. He and Knox Cunningham met at Cambridge...

Martin Dillon The Trigger Men


* Tony 'Baloney' Blair : Poodle, Punk Or Fag

Labour leader, Harold Wilson was at one time said to have had colleagues who were his "poodles", as reported by Barbara Castle in her diary entry for 7th February 1968:

'..The dissidents, Joe said, have not decided who the Leader should be, but apparently they are all agreed on the Deputy Leader. Me! Haines said that they believe that in any contest for the leadership in the PLP at this moment I would be runner-up; and they wanted me as Deputy Leader because I had always taken an independent line and was not just one of what they call 'Wilson's poodles'...'

Decades later, the description of Tony Blair as either the poodle of George W. Bush, or of America didn't ever strike me as very meaningful. When I read of him having been a fag for an older boy at Fettes College, it seemed to me that the role he was really acting out was not that of America's poodle, but rather AMERICA'S FAG.

Later, I read the journalist Peter McKay suggest, in his newspaper column that Tony Blair was not a poodle; but more a punk. Although Mr McKay made no mention of Blair's fagging at school, as a notable formative precursor to his adult behaviour as British Prime Minister, the similarity between the role of a 'punk' in a U.S. prison and a 'fag' in a Scottish authoritarian (prison-like) boarding school is obvious.

Daniel Transit