tim's experiment

An unfortunate coincidence, but it couldn’t happen to a more deserving victim. Mr Tony Blair (yes, that one – the former UK Prime Minister) is in town just as we are all getting the details of his warm support for the late unlamented Libyan despot Muammar Ghaddafi.

Mr Blair is a slimy duplicitous creep with a strong line in self-deception. But that is normal for professional politicians. His role as jackal to Mr George W. Bush’s tiger in the waging of unprovoked aggressive war on fictional pretexts is now old history. But we are still finding out other things about Mr Blair. Tony now considers himself a man of faith. Indeed it seems he considered himself a man of faith for quite a long time before revealing the fact, because it would have been politically inexpedient. Faith is apparently now his thing, anyway, and Mr Blair’s idea of a contructive use for his status as an elder statesman is a thing called the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. In pursuit of this he was billed to give a speech about faith at the University of Hong Kong today (Thursday). Readers who feel as queasy about this as I do may be reassured to know that the term has finished so Mr Blair’s thoughts on the matter will not be dripped on unsuspecting students.

According to the SCMPost Mr Blair’s speech was to be followed by a 30-minute question and answer session. Anyone who was short of an interesting question could turn to the front of the City Section, where we were given a detailed update on the case of Mr Sami al-Saadi, who was – with his wife and four children – lured to Hong Kong, arrested, bundled onto a plane and sent to Libya, where the whole family wound up in the Tajoura prison, Mr Saadi’s home for the next three years. Mr al-Saadi, who was then a dissident or a terrorist but is now regarded as a heroic resister of despotism,  is suing everyone involved in this nefarious undertaking, which seems to have been illegal from beginning to end.  Mr Blair appears in the timeline provided by the Post’s editors: March 23: CIA fax sent to Tripoli … March 25: British Prime Minister Tony Blair meets Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. March 28: Saadi and his family deported to Tripoli. What did the prime minister and the lethal Libyan nutcase talk about, one wonders. Faith?

Actually I think the greatest service Mr Blair could do for faith would be to keep his filthy fingerprints off it. You should not buy a used religion from this man.  He is living proof of the difference between religiosity and righteousness.  If you see him around the place, please give him a kick for me.