Kill your idols

One thing that really has gone to Prestatyn is the business of referring to “Tony Bliar”. Ho ho ho. In Standpoint the great Nick Cohen – that uniquely clear-eyed scourge of all forms of cant on both left and right wings - correctly observes that, like Thatcher before him, Blair has now become the cartoon baddie for the liberal media (the BBC and Channel 4 particularly).

Of course they hated Thatcher from the start, she had that advantage; Blair was adored so his former worshippers are like betrayed teenage lovers, flushed and hysterical. He was the Messiah so now he is the man who can do no good and who did no good. Even in Northern Ireland he contributed nothing, it was all Mo. Iraq was obviously the big one but no doubt it would have happened anyway.

It’s not that they say “Of course the removal of a genocidal tyrant is a good thing, but…”; it’s that Saddam doesn’t figure in ‘discussions’ at all. Instead there’s an endless argument from terms and conditions. Blair's “illegal war” has become a truism, as if the big thing about Iraq is that it was a case of white-collar fraud. I wonder what they’ll do to Obama when the last flickers of passion die.