Andrew Pierce: Tony Blair's reputation finally goes up in smoke
[Andrew Pierce is a blogger at the Telegraph.]
So he lied after all? More than 10 years on, The Sunday Telegraph has presented evidence that Tony Blair deliberately intervened to exempt Formula One racing from the ban on tobacco advertising.
In a funny way, the apparent lie is even more shocking than the one he told in the House of Commons about Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. That's because this one came barely three months after New Labour had swept into power promising to be "whiter than white", compared to the Tories who, after 18 years in office, were sleazy, discredited and deservedly on the way out.
But here was Blair - who had been blocked from invoking his deep religious faith in politics by Alastair "we don't do God" Campbell - misleading viewers on prime-time television. Now we know that, having given up cigarettes on the orders of Cherie at Oxford, he was persuaded by money to allow smoking to be associated with the glamorous sport of motor racing.
When the meeting with Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone first surfaced in the press, in 1997, the size of the donation was unknown. I wrote that it was £1.5 million. Naturally, New Labour's spin doctors dismissed my article as malicious fiction.
Yet within 24 hours the party had confirmed that it had, in fact, received £1 million. That night, I asked its most senior press officer if there were any more uncomfortable revelations about the party's relationship with the most powerful man in motor racing. He insisted there were not. Nevertheless, the next day I reported that a second cheque for £1 million was in the post. So, in total, the deal was £2 million.
Within days, the saintly new prime minister went on television with John Humphrys to insist: "I'm a pretty straight sort of guy." Well, we have known for a long time that that is not the case, and not just because of the dodgy Iraq dossier. I still find it hard to believe that Blair knew nothing of the two flats his wife was buying in Bristol for £240,000.
The Speaker is now to mount a Commons investigation into whether Blair misled Parliament...
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
So he lied after all? More than 10 years on, The Sunday Telegraph has presented evidence that Tony Blair deliberately intervened to exempt Formula One racing from the ban on tobacco advertising.
In a funny way, the apparent lie is even more shocking than the one he told in the House of Commons about Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. That's because this one came barely three months after New Labour had swept into power promising to be "whiter than white", compared to the Tories who, after 18 years in office, were sleazy, discredited and deservedly on the way out.
But here was Blair - who had been blocked from invoking his deep religious faith in politics by Alastair "we don't do God" Campbell - misleading viewers on prime-time television. Now we know that, having given up cigarettes on the orders of Cherie at Oxford, he was persuaded by money to allow smoking to be associated with the glamorous sport of motor racing.
When the meeting with Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone first surfaced in the press, in 1997, the size of the donation was unknown. I wrote that it was £1.5 million. Naturally, New Labour's spin doctors dismissed my article as malicious fiction.
Yet within 24 hours the party had confirmed that it had, in fact, received £1 million. That night, I asked its most senior press officer if there were any more uncomfortable revelations about the party's relationship with the most powerful man in motor racing. He insisted there were not. Nevertheless, the next day I reported that a second cheque for £1 million was in the post. So, in total, the deal was £2 million.
Within days, the saintly new prime minister went on television with John Humphrys to insist: "I'm a pretty straight sort of guy." Well, we have known for a long time that that is not the case, and not just because of the dodgy Iraq dossier. I still find it hard to believe that Blair knew nothing of the two flats his wife was buying in Bristol for £240,000.
The Speaker is now to mount a Commons investigation into whether Blair misled Parliament...