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