Two weeks ago, in the course of an interview with the Observer, Tony Blair claimed that he had already said sorry for issuing false information about Iraq. This is what he said: ‘We’ve apologised for the information that was given being wrong.’
I have since ransacked government statements, but found no trace of any apology. Downing Street, when asked, has also been unable to shed any light on the matter. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Prime Minister’s claim was another of those lies which regularly drop from his lips.
Two days after the falsehood in the Observer, the Prime Minister made his annual speech to the Labour party conference. His aides pressed him to apologise, even planting the word ‘sorry’ in the final draft of his speech. But Tony Blair could not bring himself to utter the word. This is what he said instead: ‘I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong but I can’t, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam.’
Friends of the Prime Minister duly claimed that this was the long-awaited recantation. But of course it was nothing of the sort. Tony Blair ‘can’ apologise, just as I ‘can’ walk to John O’ Groat’s. That does not mean that either of us have any intention of doing so.
There matters rested until poor Patricia Hewitt was cornered on Question Time last week. Under pressure she, like the Prime Minister, at first resorted to deceit. But the audience responded with gasps of disbelief, and Hewitt was forced into the nearest thing we have yet had to an expression of penitence from a senior member of the government.
This repeated failure to atone for deceiving the British people on the eve of a war is curious.
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