Blair bans Labour Party delegation from flying to Join Kerry's coronation

Tony Blair has ordered Labour ministers and officials not to become embroiled in the US presidential race in an apparent attempt to avoid offending George W Bush.

The Prime Minister's veto on visits to the US means that only one minister, Douglas Alexander, will attend the formal crowning of John Kerry, the Democrats' candidate, in Boston in late July.

Mr Blair's intervention, which will prevent his Labour colleagues from offering their traditional support to the Democrats, has astonished ministers who remember the close links Labour had with Bill Clinton during previous presidential campaigns.

In the past, up to 10 Labour officials and a few MPs have attended the Democrat convention informally, including close friends of the Chancellor and Downing Street aides.

One minister said last night. "It won't work because the Labour Party won't break off its contacts, but obviously it will be more difficult."

Mr Blair's intervention has prompted speculation that he is privately hoping for a Bush victory to avoid being isolated internationally on the war on Iraq.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/21/nblair21.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/03/21/ixportal.html

nt

F off?

Who is HE to tell them where they can go? What a pathetic poodle.

He is their boss.

it's your only hope. Blair is such a scumbag!!!

:mad:

Blair is an enemy of freedom. What right does this little
Poodle/Fascist have to tell anyone what to do??????

:puke:

This is so fantastic I can't believe it. The whole world is counting on Kerry to free us from the Idiot King.

the Grand Poodle. May he be defeated at the polls!

and he is the major problem. I wish our friends across the pond luck in getting ride of their idiot leader, and I know they wish us the same.

does anyone remember the speech clinton gave in the uk in 2002 ? blair had asked clinton to come because he needed some support from his own people who were upset at him for the talks with bush on iraq. but instead of just backing up blair, clinton went into a bunch of things about how bush was never really elected by the people and other things bush was doing that were horrible. the audience LOVED the speech, they loved clinton. but blair had to apologize to bush later on for it.

but Rove must have some bloody flipping good pictures of the poodle in action, hid somewhere.

Blair is pretty dispised in the UK right now, no doubt some politican there will try bank on the Bush* hatred and come to openly support Kerry.

Blair is looking like a sitting duck lately and after Spain and Poland, he is feeling pretty lonely.

I'm not that worried about this.

As far as Blair is concerned, if HE can't run the Labour party, enacting right wing policies under a left wing banner, then he will take down the Labour party, ensuring their election defeat.

Blair doesn't care if Labour wins or loses, the ONLY thing that matters is that right wing policies be enacted, either by him in control of Labour, or by the Tories.

Ugly Rumor is, it's the Mandelson connection that's the root of the blackmail, pardoning the puns.

Blair is a right winger. He is Bush's ideological partner. He is NOT scared of Bush, nor is he scared of being "isolated". Blair WANTS Bush to win because he AGREES with Bush.

Of course, being a crypto-right winger hiding in the Labour party, he can not be open about it, but that does not mean he will go out of his way to disavow Bush either.

As far as Blair is concerned the only thing that matters is enacting right wing policies, or ensuring that Labour is defeated. THAT is why he refuses to step down. If he was to step down, Labour could win the next election AND be free of the right wing influence, and that can not be tolerated.

blair is conservative and that's really the whole picture.

...needs to check this out urgently.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1116854,00.html

Spare a thought this bleak new year for all those who rely on charity. Open your hearts, for example, to a group of people who, though they live in London, are in such desperate need of handouts that last year they received £7.6m in foreign aid. The Adam Smith Institute, the ultra-rightwing lobby group, now receives more money from Britain's Department for International Development (DfID) than Liberia or Somalia, two of the most desperate nations on Earth.

Are the members of the Adam Smith Institute starving? Hardly. They work in plush offices in Great Smith Street, just around the corner from the Houses of Parliament. They hold lavish receptions and bring in speakers from all over the world. Big business already contributes generously to this good cause.

It gets what it pays for. The institute's purpose is to devise new means for corporations to grab the resources that belong to the public realm. Its president, Madsen Pirie, claims to have invented the word privatisation. His was the organisation that persuaded the Conservative government to sell off the railways, deregulate the buses, introduce the poll tax, cut the top rates of income tax, outsource local government services and start to part-privatise the national health service and the education system. "We propose things," Pirie once boasted, "which people regard as being on the edge of lunacy. The next thing you know, they're on the edge of policy." In this spirit, his institute now calls for the privatisation of social security, the dismantling of the NHS and a shift from public to private education. It opposes government spending on everything, in other words, except the Adam Smith Institute.

that breeds these greedy bastards.

wants Bush to win.

However, this is a theme the British press relentlessly push with very little supporting evidence, in my opinoin.

So take info with a grain of salt.

Interestingly enough, Blair just moved elections earlier... just before ours.

they're called.

The media jumped all over this in order to create the expectation that there should be elections.

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The Telegraph has pretty much always been a pro-Tory paper. I wouldn't be surprised if they made up this story in order to attempt to divide the Labour party.

Furthermore, they have pushed this theory persistently without ever naming a single source for their claims.

You'd think that after the TENTH or so article claiming that Blair wants Bush to win that SOMEBODY would be on record with evidence supporting the claim.

convention, there won't be any media coverage at all.

If there's a popular media angle on Blair which isn't supported by facts, I wouldn't expect even the Herald to buck the trend.

And here's a list of articles by Cusick on Blair. They all follow a commone theme:

http://www.sundayherald.com/np/James-Cusick.shtml

Let's see if this grovel reciprocity works both ways...

What is he hiding???? I used to be a fan of Blair until he starting cavorting with the smirking chimp, i would like to know if he has any connection at all to BP or maybe GW has pictures of him with farm animals?

of other laborites working to ensure that kerry would
defeat bush. they've been at it for a while apparently
and so hence blair's disquiet. the wanker. I think they
will go around him. he can't really make anyone do
anything in the long run. if people move and come anyway
it will be a show of independence that can only help.

These right-wing newspapers are really lame.