The Death of Truth & Reputation
– and Open-Season on Politicians!

IF YOU HEAR WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH in the wake of Tony Blair's third election victory, that's just the nation's libel laywers at their going-out-of-business booze-up. The British people knew full well that Tony Blair and his Ministers have lied their heads off for the past eight years, abused their powers and enriched themselves and their cronies at the taxpayer's expense.
   And knowing all that, enough of them voted Labour at the 2005 general election to return Blair and his gang to office. Which proves that reputation counts for nothing, its loss, therefore, is not worth a single red cent and libel lawyers are destined to starve, poor things.

If a man can tell so many lies and still be re-elected,
then political libel has indeed been abolished!

The British people knew full well that Blair lied to the nation about everything – immigration, taxes (see our Stealth Taxes feature), the threat to this country from Saddam Hussein, the policies of political opponents, his relationship with Gordon Brown (the man who became his arch-enemy as a result of his lies); absolutely everything. But none of that mattered because he still got in.

Believe it or what!

"The world will flock to London to celebrate the arrival of a new millennium in our Millennium Dome." "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction ready for use at 4-5 minutes' notice." "Actually, I'm a pretty straight sort of guy." "I won't put taxes up and especially I won't put National Insurance up."

   He tried to neuter the House of Lords in an attempt to frustrate its role as a revising chamber, he packed the Lords with his cronies; he gave us hospitals with MRSA, he kept patients out of hospitals through forcing the hospitals to keep people off waiting lists to avoid missing meaningless government targets, and he wrecked the education system through traditional Labour spite, persistent meddling and making exam results meaningless. But he still has his job.
   Blair wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers' money on his Millennium Dome, on paying too much compensation to farmers hit by the foot & mouth outbreak, on salaries for cronies apointed to pointless quangos, on trying to slide the nation into the eurozone, on an illegal war in Iraq and much, much more. But none of that mattered because he still got in.
   He gave jobs to cronies in the legal trade (e.g. Lord Irvine and Charlie Falconer) and hurried disgraced ministers back into plum jobs (e.g. Peter Mandelson twice and David Blunkett, who is set to return to the Cabinet). Blair and New Labour gave a collective seal of approval to Alastair Campbell politicizing the civil service in Labour's favour But who cares? Well, no one, if the result of the 2005 general election is to be believed.

So the good news is we can now say anything we like about Blair;
a totally tarnished reputation cannot be blackened further!

IF POLITICIANS CAN LIE TO US, get indignant when no one believes them, and get even more indignant when their lies are exposed, then they have willingly abandoned all contact with the truth. Which gives the rest of us a licence to say anything we like about them. And get just as indignant if they object.
   So as we head off into the rosy tomorrow of another period of Labour rule Blair style, let us not despair. No one is to blame, and it doesn't matter anyway if we are entitled to as much fun as we like at his expense.

The death of truth means the end of protection and the end of profit for lying politicians. If they have no care for their reputations, then the rest of us can ignore them, too!

#