Now that the new Prime Minister has appointed his cabinet we can expect to hear from the old crew about how they were opposed to the Iraq adventure, but felt that they could do more good inside government than on the back benches. I wait to see how many will say "I was with Tony all the way on Iraq". I predict a very small and leprous band.

More revisionism; Abd-al-Basit al-Megrahi is to appeal once more against his life sentence for his part(?) in the Lockerbie bombing. Now that Libya is coming in from the cold and Bush has his sights on Iran it's going to be OK to revive the other version of Lockerbie; that the perpetrators were the Ahmad Jibril group, hired by the Iranians. If Megrahi's sentence is quashed, and Libya's involvement is finally refuted, perhaps Gadafy will demand repayment of all the compensation he shelled out to get back onside with the Great Satan.

It sounds like a bad joke, but like the one about Kissinger and the Nobel Peace Prize, it turns out to be true. Blair ("carry on bombing, Ehud") is going to be international Middle East peace envoy. Confirmation, if any were needed, that the last thing the NeoConnnards want is peace in the Middle East. I'm betting that Blair ("Let's invade Iraq, George") will have a whopping big golden handshake written into his contract for the job. Even he, Walter Mitty incarnate, cannot believe that he will last a full year in the job. Get in, grab the money, get out; the Eurotrash circuit beckons. Then the Bushwacker can appoint Alan Dershowitz to the post.
Let's hope that Putin puts the block on this insult to be added to Middle East's injuries.

Dog Bites Man!
"No Officers To Be Charged Over Finucane Murder" - headline in today's Guardian

After Hamas won the election in the Ruritanian Republic of Palestine the incumbent President, Abbas, acting on behalf of the US, refused to cooperate with the newly formed government. Eventually Abbas's Fatah militia attempted a coup. It failed, and the result was complete control of Gaza by Hamas, and an end to the little authority that remained to Abbas.
ITN yesterday referred to these events as a "military coup" by Hamas. Why?
What the British media pretend not to know - Hamas was a pathetic little religious party with hardly any support among Palestinians until the Israeli mass murderer, Sharon, decided to build it up to weaken support for Fatah. Zionist money was lavished on Hamas who spent it on community welfare projects. By this time Fatah, under Arafat, had settled for a virtual Palestinian state controlled by Israel. All the leading Fidayeen had been killed by the Israelis, or had been marginalised by the new men, who had taken no part in the armed struggle, but were determined to win the peace. As corruption became the norm under Fatah, support for Hamas grew and grew. All the western propaganda portraying them as terrorists was wasted on the Palestinians. In fact it was not intended for the Palestinians, for no US or UK goverment was ever interested in Palestinian opinion. Now the Palestinian people have a government vilified by western governments and media. Hamas are "terrorists", so anything that happens to the Palestinians now is of their own doing. Let slip the dogs of war. The world's third most powerful military state feels threatened by its sickly Islamic neighbour. The Hamas fighters will be easily defeated, unlike the better armed Lebanese Hizbullahi fighters. Then the massacres can begin, and we in the West can stand by and watch with a clear conscience.

When I first heard about Blair's speech on the telly the word chutzpah sprang to mind. Looking around I found that the word had already been used -
Obsolete: The worst, most sensationalist newspaper? Why, the Independent, of course!
As I heard more (I always avoid direct contact with Blair's lies) another word suggested itself - cowardice. I thought at first that Blair was biting the hand that had massaged his ego. But no, he was just arse-licking and complaining about the taste at the same time. It was like the bloke who gets a bollocking at work, then goes home and kicks the dog. Blair who for years has been kissing Murdoch's arse has decided to bite the Independent's in protest.
Can we read from all this that the big cheque from Murdoch for his memoirs/apologia/pack of lies has been cashed and can't be recovered?
Perhaps, now that Brown is taking over, Blair's doing a spoiler, stirring things up between the "feral beasts" and the Labour Party. Brown has done the hand-kissing and genuflecting to the White House war party and the Dirty Digger, but they still don't trust him. He doesn't have that eager to please manner of the Great Sycophant.
Phrases not used in the Blair whine: weapons of mass destruction, forty-five minutes, war crimes.