Has there ever been anyone so convinced of his own rectitude than Tony Blair? I mean, even Joe Stalin or Pol Pot may have had twinges of doubt or even remorse from time to time, but there's no sign of any such thing from Blair. His amazing weekend interview with Fern Britton shows he is totally unrepentant over his decision to lie to Parliament and the British public about the case for the Iraq war. He doesn't seem particularly bothered by the fact that thousands of "coalition" troops and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have died as a result.
In any case, why has Blair suddenly decided to do a TV interview on the subject; and why with Fern Britton rather than with someone with more gravitas? (Actually, the answer to that last one isn't hard to guess). He's going to face questioning on the whole issue when he goes before the Chilcot inquiry in January, but it seems that a lot of his testimony will be taken in private. Is his lust for public attention so great that he feels a compelling urge to put his side of the story in front of the public anyway? I can't see any other explanation, because his side of the story turns out to be as bad or worse than the suspicions of his fiercest critics.
Many years ago my firm hired a new boss from outside the company. On his first morning with the firm, he called all of the senior staff together and said that anyone caught trying to conceal loss-making trades would be fired. No second chances, because "if you'd do it once, you'd do it again". All those people paying Blair serious money (JPM, Zurich Insurance, the publishers of his autobiography, whoever is paying for his pointless role in the Middle East) might do well to keep that in mind.
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