In the wake of Chilcot’s report, will Tony Blair atone like Profumo? Don’t hold your breath

BY waging a war that never needed to be fought, Tony Blair poisoned the well of British politics.

Beyond the human cost of Iraq, the money-grabbing warmonger has contaminated political life in this country.

After Blair it is easy — far too easy — to believe that a politician can look us in the eye while lying through their back teeth.

What a tragedy for the oldest democracy in the world that one selfish, empty sorry excuse for a man can inflict such widespread cynicism.

Beyond the human cost of Iraq, the money-grabbing warmonger has contaminated political life in this country.

True, in all those 2.6million understated civil servant words, the Chilcot Report never actually calls Tony Blair a liar.

But the devastating report makes it clear that Blair sent somebody else’s sons and daughters into Iraq “before peaceful options had been exhausted”.

And Chilcot makes clear that Blair’s fairytale about Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction was “presented with a certainty that was not justified”.

It makes painfully plain that Blair acted as a willing poodle to America’s big dog, promising British support to the US  no matter the cost in lives and money, no matter what our Parliament might decide and no matter what the facts might be.

“I will be with you, whatever,” Blair promised Bush.

These  revelations leave a stain on Blair’s reputation that will stalk him to his grave. Countless lives have been destroyed, a region is in chaos and the world is a more dangerous place.

And Tony Blair skips off to stuff his pockets, advise dictators and increase his property portfolio.

I voted for Blair three times. I remember how full of hope this entire nation felt when he came into office after 18 years of Tory rule. But he will be remembered for dragging  democracy into the sewer.

I struggle to believe we so meekly swallowed the garbage he cynically spoonfed us.

Blair’s sycophantic spooks  apparently lifted a key claim about Saddam’s chemical weapons from a Hollywood thriller, The Rock.

Blair’s sycophantic spooks apparently lifted a key claim about Saddam’s chemical weapons from a Hollywood thriller, The Rock.

Dossiers making the case for war lifted passages from a student’s essay found online.

Blair and his cabal of cronies  conspired to let somebody else’s loved ones — British servicemen, all those unknown Iraqi men, women and children — pay the ultimate price for their monstrous arrogance. And even now they can’t say it was all based on deception, dishonesty and deceit.

Alastair Campbell was quick to say that the Chilcot Report cleared him of “sexing-up” intelligence. “The truth was — and remains, confirmed today — that the so-called sexing up of intelligence never happened,” said Campbell.

It is true that Chilcot does not single Blair’s spinmeister general out for specific criticism.

But come on, Alastair — the Weapons of Mass Destruction 45 minutes away that were itching to destroy Cyprus never existed in the real world.

Even Blair himself concedes the entire tragedy was based on a big fat fib.

“The intelligence was wrong and I relied on it,” Blair told the BBC.

If that is not “sexing up” then let’s call it exaggeration, shall we?

Or how about hyperbole and embroidery?

But let’s not quibble too much about semantics on Iraq’s mountain of corpses.

And let the blame be shared among Blair’s slavish Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, his passive Attorney  General Lord Goldsmith, those neutered spooks, sycophantic civil servants and the gung-ho Chiefs of Staff — the donkeys who send the lions to war.

Because still they die — 250 people killed while shopping in Baghdad on a holiday to mark the end of Ramadan and around the same number “injured” — that harmless-sounding euphemism for arms and legs blown off, faces destroyed and families torn apart for ever.

But not Tony Blair. And not anyone he loves, despite the B-movie emotion he wheeled out at his press conference.

I think of John Profumo, the disgraced politician whose career was destroyed by the Christine Keeler scandal in 1963 and who then devoted his life to working as a volunteer for a charity in London’s East End. It’s called atonement.

My parents and their generation admired Profumo for the way he spent a lifetime making amends for getting it so badly wrong.

We should not hold our breath waiting for Tony Blair to do a John Profumo. We should not expect anything resembling genuine remorse.

But if he lacks the human decency to say sorry, then Tony Blair should say nothing at all.

– AS the chairman of the British Fertility Society, Adam Balen says girls as young of nine should be warned about leaving it too late to start a family.

As the father of a young daughter, I think he’s nuts. When did childhood get abolished?

Oscar fate a tragedy for us all

THE most remarkable thing I have ever seen in my life is the day I watched a man who had both legs amputated below the knee before his first birthday take part in a race against some of the finest athletes on the planet.

I was there on the opening Saturday of the London 2012 Olympics.

The memory doesn’t fade even as Oscar Pistorius is jailed for six years for murder.

I believed Pistorius was going to be an inspiration, changing attitudes about disability just as other great men changed our attitudes about race.

How wrong can you be?

What has happened to Pistorius is a tragedy for Reeva Steenkamp, all who loved her and – if you have a heart – for the fallen Blade Runner himself.

It is also a tragedy for the human race. You could have changed the world, Oscar.

— WITH her unstinting and unapologetic passion for reclaiming our country, Liz Hurley has become our national sweetheart.

“Bring it on, you ranting luvvies, fat cat bankers and multi-national corporations,” laughs Liz.

“Continue to alienate the humble voice of Middle England.

“Knock yourselves out calling us ill-educated Neanderthals and spit a bit more venom and vitriol our way.”

What a woman!

If we are going to have a female Prime Minister, can’t it be Liz Hurley?

Waltzing in a new direction

I HAVE known and loved Christoph Waltz for knocking on for 25 years, since the days when he was an unknown actor living in Muswell Hill, north London.

But my old mate and I are going to have to agree to disagree about the UK quitting the EU.

“Abysmal stupidity,” rages Christoph, while promoting his new movie The Legend of Tarzan.

But Christoph and I see things from the perspective of the nations where we were born.

Continental Europeans have a collective memory of fascism and communism that is not shared by the people of my nation.

The British never needed anyone to set us free.

How would Tarzan put it? You Austrian – me Brit.

– WHEN France take the field against Portugal in tonight’s Euro 2016 Final it will be a moment of wrenching emotion.

France were playing Germany at the Stade de France last November 13 when terrorists inflicted slaughter on Paris.

The players were close enough to hear a bomb detonate. The sister of Antoine Griezmann, the dazzling star of this tournament, was at The Bataclan, but she survived.

The whole world cheers for France today.

Paris deserves a celebration.