This week has been dominated by the Iraq Inquiry, the phoney war precursor to the 2010 General Election and continued political fallout from the apparently unstoppable vagina of scandal surrounding Iris Robinson, MP MLA.
The Iraq Inquiry has begun to become interesting. Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair’s spin doctor, was called upon to give evidence, and instead decided to give a bizarre and disreputable performance. He stood over the Dodgy Dossier, he asserted that Tony Blair’s position on the invasion was essentially unchanged after meeting George W Bush. All of which rather went against evidence given by practically everyone else.
In political current affairs, Brown had another good Prime Minister’s Questions. David Cameron was forced to discuss whether his pre-election posters were airbrushed (10ft pictures of a male human face really ought to be airbrushed, let’s face it) and the Liberal Democrats were forced, as usual, to sit on the sidelines pretending that Vince Cable isn’t someone who once said something mildly interesting.
Peter Watt’s autobiographical account covering his time as Labour Party has thrown a hand grenade into Brown’s plans not to appear a complete gobshite. Iain Dale’s involvement in publishing and handling the serialisation of the book in the Daily Mail is a touch of political genius. The erstwhile blogger and Prospective Prospective Parliamentary Candidate knows, of course, that he’s doing more to demonise Brown than practically anyone else, and it’s a joy to see him action.
As one opinion poll revealed on Saturday 16th that the Conservatives have improved their position by 4%, sitting on 42% to Labour’s 28% (Comres, Independent on Sunday, 17/01/10), politics is going in one direction, and it isn’t in the direction of the Labour Party.
And now a word about Iris Robinson and her incredible ability to accidentally screw up her personal life and political process. Her husband (well, the person she was married to anyway) has stepped down from his postion as First Minister to be replaced, temporarily by Arlene Foster MLA, formerly a UUP politician and generally pretty well trusted on issues of policing and justice by unionists.
Peter Robinson continues to be involved in negotiations around the devolution of the final piece in the jigsaw, and remains as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party as he seeks to clear his name. I feel a resurgence in the Ulster Conservative and Unionists’ fortunes, so long as tories are allowed off the leash to say they’re tories in future campaigning.
Finally and most importantly, of course the earthquake in Haiti deserves our concern, but would probably benefit from our cash a little more. In the United Kingdom you want to get up to date through the Disaster Emergency Committee and in the Republic of Ireland you need to see GOAL.
