Damaged Blair axis-of-terror defeated

"In the biggest reverse for a government on a whipped vote since James Callaghan's administration, Mr Blair was defeated comprehensively by 322 to 291, with 49 Labour backbenchers, including 11 (BBC say 12) former ministers, defying a three-line whip. Thirteen others abstained." ^Guardian

Even a post-Hutton BBC describes Blair as "Severely damaged", and pretty much every paper is asking when he is going to leave.

Nearly 50 Labour MPs rebelled including 12 of Blair's own former ministers. Blair's mind police dragged back Brown from Israel, Jack Straw from Moscow and Ian McCartney was yanked off his sick bed after triple heart-bypass surgery. But it was to no avail.

Blair, once again, tried to use terror to bolster his position, and it's something he has a track record of doing. He did it after 9/11, he did it after 7/7, and this time, he did it on the back of a ridiculous public campaign that unsurprisingly, and rightly, blew up in his face:

It's left a wonky sociopathic Ian Blair-Met yet more exposed as little more than bidding political pawns.

It's left the Home Office similarly exposed as a malevolent, bungling agent of dictatorial political policy and spin campaigns led by Rupert Murdoch.

And it's left Blair himself exposed and dangling as a personally ridiculous entity with his duplicitous plot unveiled. Apparently he still thought he had his 'landslide' 1997 majority, unfortunately his judgement, leadership and integrity were long since gone. (Iraq)

Now every media outlet (apart from The Sun who are getting more and more irrational and fanatical, and a slightly more restrained Murdoch Times) are now wanting to know when he is going to resign.

To try to secure one's position by hiding behind the likes of ally Rupert Murdoch's 'fear of terror' media machine is absolutely disgusting, but the real issue was never just about Blair's personal authority, although it actually became that through this ill-conceived plan.

In many ways that was a false debate or at least a different one. It's not about Blair not having the authority on this to carry it through, it's about having the lack of judgement, sheer arrogance and malevolence to come up with such a diabolical scheme in the first place, then, when it and Blair run into trouble, using the police, the civil service and Murdoch to try to spin it so.

You can't make laws just to appease Murdoch and Daily Express* sentiments within the press and the public. Otherwise what do we have ? Terrorists creating crazy laws in every country they detonate a bomb in and even those they don't, like Australia. It's a double whammy, kill many and get legal terrorism, constitutional terrorism out of it as well.

*(who ironically pretty much say Diana was killed by MI6)

Yet a defeated Blair blames the 28 days as 'being plucked out of thin air" by rebel MPs (these heroes described as 'traitors' by Blair's spinners), but at the same time the police, at Ian Blair's own admission did exactly the same with 90 days, Ian Blair going on to confess 'there was no magic number, in effect no limit'

Curiously, Tony Blair, Murdoch, Ian Blair and others in that axis failed to express that it doesn't really matter what length of time you intern someone for, or what political punishments you push out there, you cannot even begin to suggest, let alone guarantee, that, or similar x,y or z proposal, is in itself, going to stop the next terrorist act.

It is the most stupid, irresponsible dangerous garbage (from Blair and Murdoch) to bascially suggest that 'well if we don't get this particular thing through then that is why the next big atrocity will happen and you are all going to die. If you don't support this then you're helping terrorists'.

But while it sounds impressive, "I'm saving the country, can't you see?", it is a flawed argument, a logical fallacy tied to yet another political falsehood. Blair has now paid for that lie. He used beguiling language of absolutes, much as in the build up to Iraq, and he brought in his soiled political police-chief buddies to justify it, and it failed.

I worried yesterday after seeing Murdoch's and other's campaigns to push public opinion, but by the afternoon I suddenly realised, this had to die. You can push public polls all day long, but that doesn't mean the public is right. After all, how many idiots say yes to the death penalty when asked ? Reality and what is correct had to kick in somewhere.

Tellingly, it seems that even before that, the impending Blair-axis defeat was all too much from some, including New Labour toad, lickspittle, Iraq war fan and possible rotten-borough drunkard Jim Dowd who started attacking one of the rebels after Dowd was aptly described as a faggot.

But for a change, real democracy came through, with Parliament delivering the right verdict against enormous and repulsive pressure from the Murdochs of this world. As for Blair, who has dug himself into a hole in the ground with his own spin, manipulation and shocking deceit and opportunism, whilst simultaneously exposing his own plot for the world to see, ironically there can be little doubt now that it is all unraveling:

"As the impact on the prime minister's authority sunk in, MPs then voted by 323 to 290 to support detention without charge for only 28 days, the position advocated by the Liberal Democrats and the Tories. The scale of the defeat rocked Labour whips, raising questions about Mr Blair's political judgment of late and suggesting that he now has a permanent cadre of irreconcilable backbenchers who neither listen to nor respect his views, leaving him in charge of an effective minority administration on controversial issues.

The former cabinet minister Clare Short said the defeat presaged further revolts. "It would be good for him, and certainly the Labour administration, if he moved on quickly," she said. Another former minister, Frank Dobson, predicted bigger revolts on Mr Blair's plans for schools.

Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, said: "Mr Blair has been engaged in the most appaling distortion of the arguments. Mr Blair's authority has been diminished almost to vanishing point. This vote shows he is no longer able to carry his own party with him. He must now consider his position." ^Guardian

Tony Blair terror laws Murdoch