The Spectator

Asking the wrong questions

The plot thickens It is as if we are stuck in a hideous loop.

issue 22 January 2011

The plot thickens

It is as if we are stuck in a hideous loop.

The plot thickens

It is as if we are stuck in a hideous loop. Every few months, it seems, Tony Blair is once again hauled up to give evidence to the never-ending Iraq inquiry. Each time he is dragged from a luxury hotel in some distant land to London, where he gives the younger political generation a masterclass in how to evade direct questioning. The questioning always proceeds along the same lines: why did we go to war? But the real scandal is the British army was defeated in Basra, and the Iraqi people abandoned to death squads. The question that should be asked is ‘why did we lose?’

The politics of decline have returned, and our political class are starting to regard Britain as an island with no business trying to shape the world.

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