One Way Or Another

I am one of those people who did not believe we were invading Iraq for the right reasons. I felt at the time we were being lied to and this week's polished PR performance by Tony Blair in the lead up to his testimony at the Iraq Inquiry only made my beliefs more firm.

For a man so devote and steeped in faith, it's disgusting that his convictions were so tainted. There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was an evil man but the only danger he posed was to his own people - he was an international spent force. That alone is not a reason for regime change and it was a far cry from the botched and flawed gimmickry of concocting a reason when we did invade. In his own mind, Blair is blameless - he killed a worse man than he. But in the minds of the friends and relatives of the soldiers who died during the whole fiasco, he is little better than the evil dictator he sent them to fight.

This is the man who is a Middle East Peace Envoy, who wanted to be the inaugural EU President, who would want a Nobel Peace Prize, who wants a place in his history. For me, the only place for him in my memory is as a lying, egotistical sham of a man who did no good for this country. To my mind, along with George W Bush, he should be tried for War Crimes as the war they started in Iraq was illegal and contrary to the wishes of the UN. Since his time as PM, he has busied himself making money - he could not get away from the squalid world of the sleazy politics he was involved in fast enough, or the puerile relationship with Gordon Brown and then distance him from the mess he created that we all live in. He spent time, expertly creating the rewritten history of the 'Blair Years' to convince us of a new story to bathe himself in glory even though we had witnessed the same history at first hand. Largely, people swallowed it and a new generation of 'Blair Apologists' rose - who cannot wait for his autobiography which is probably being rewritten as we speak so that he can give us an updated version of his lies.

I never saw the man as the shining beacon of a new world or glossy New Labour - I saw him and Mandelson for the slimy creeps they are. Lying, shady and, ultimately, guilty of crimes against humanity.

His is a Faith I want no part of.