Way back in the 12th century, King Henry II is supposed to have called for someone to rid him of a turbulent priest, meaning the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. Today, it would not be surprising to hear calls for the similar disposal of Tony Blair.
Having led the UK to economic disaster during his 10 years as Prime Minister, Blair simply refuses to go away, in fact, just the opposite. He has spent the last few years trotting around the world playing at being an international mediator, negotiator and statesman though he has achieved little if anything of note. Nonetheless, he still turns up regularly just like the proverbial 'bad penny', spouting his half-baked and usually disruptive messages.
As Prime Minister he managed to bamboozle Parliament into sending troops to Iraq on utterly spurious grounds; to say that he lied might be considered libellous but it's not far from the truth. Today, on the BBC's 'Today' programme, Blair was at it again, this time giving us all the benefit of his huge intellect on the subject of Brexit. He has never liked the idea of Brexit and, at one time, had clear ambitions to become President of Europe; now, he wants us to go back and rethink the result of the 2016 referendum. Just like his like-minded pals, he believes that the bulk of the electorate was simply to stupid to understand what it was voting for and that they need to be given another chance to get it 'right'.
In today's interview by John Humphrys, Blair used his usual scatter-gun approach, throwing in every conceivable issue and conflating all and sundry. He spoke rapidly, again as usual, giving the impression of being knowledgeable while actually waffling an awful lot and leaping from topic to topic at breakneck speed. He emphasised points which he believed supported his arguments and ignored those that did not. In essence, he was simply arguing for a rerun of the 2016 referendum, in typical EU style, in an effort to get what he considers to be the 'right result'.
Blair's arguments are spurious at best and rubbish at worst. He continues to make all manner of claims about the British economy now and in the future which are either misleading, plain wrong or, at this stage, unknowable. Above all, he simply wants to prevent Brexit and he'll do and say anything that might help his cause.
Thankfully, Norman Lamont had a brief opportunity to counter Blair's tirade immediately afterwards though I suspect that many people will already have switched off by then. More significantly, there have been negative comments from the Labour side as well, suggesting that Blair's continued interventions are less than helpful. Sadly, this shockingly arrogant member of the left-leaning metropolitan elite simply has too thick a skin to be put off by such adverse remarks or to hear what the people have already said. He, after all, is an international statesman of huge experience; he knows best.
We are left with only King Henry's approach, though perhaps sending knights in armour to bump him off would be a little extreme. Instead, could he not be made the UK's ambassador to somewhere vitally important to mankind's survival but also distant, somewhere like Antarctica perhaps ? There he could be assisted by those other fanatical Europhiles who have an equally arrogant approach to democrarcy, such as Peter Mandelson, Andrew Adonis, Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, Paddy Ashdown and, of course, Ken Clarke.
I'm sure they would all relish the opportunity to get stuck into solving the environmental problems affecting that part of our world, something that, in the overall scheme of things, is probably far more important than wasting their time on the piddling little issue of Brexit.
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