Nothing like a bit of Catholic guilt. However much cash he gives away, it’s blood money and won’t do him any good or repair his reputation. Don’t get me wrong, I think they should take it for all the brave soldiers who had to go out there and get killed or have their limbs blown off, for his meaningless and endlessly stupid war. No pacifist I; Saddam was a torturer and deserved death, no doubt about that. But that’s not why we were there. I’ll never vote Labour again, for me this whole next generation of labour pols are tarred for not standing up to the totally bleeding obvious. I think when he went along with George for the ride he missed the chance of a lifetime of popularity with the british public, maybe the world. He could just have said “no”, or at least “lets give Blix some more time” or what about “Lets just take out the murderer at the top”. Tony and George came from different parts (we thought) of the spectrum after all. Of course there is no spectrum. England is more than ever governed by two right wings, (three?) and when asked which was more to the right in the UK, Gore Vidal was correct in saying “one does not bring a measuring rod to Lilliput”
It was our final capitulation, for nothing.
Putting the much more complicated Afghanistan to the side a second, the favors we did for extremism and religious fascism by invading Iraq and then sacking the infrastructure, the army etc, is limitless. I think history will show Blair was far more disastrous for the UK than Thatcher, both in his actions, and what those actions resulted in for youth- more apathy, cynicism, and distrust of politics than ever before. I don’t really believe in hell, but to paraphrase an old joke, he’ll be up to his neck in fire for eternity…Of course, he’ll be standing on George’s shoulders.