Clare Short: "Spin is Tony's way of doing it"

Interview with Claire Short which is the UK Independent's big story today and which fingers Blair for his spin & lies. Make of this what you will.

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=428236

Ms Short believes Mr Blair used "half-truths and deceit" because he had convinced himself it would be bad for the world if the US went to war in Iraq alone. "I don't think a country can go to war because one individual makes that kind of analysis then misleads the Cabinet, Parliament and the country into what we are doing. But I think he thought it was an honourable thing to do."

On France, she goes further, accusing Mr Blair of lying by telling her in a one-to-one meeting that Jacques Chirac would veto any new UN resolution authorising a war. "It is absolutely clear that this is untrue," she says. What the French President actually said on 10 March, she claims, was that if Mr Blix failed after being given more time, military action would be inevitable.

"If Alastair chose to go, and that led to a determination to put back in place a decent, decision-making structure, it would be a good thing for this country." The Government, she says, is living proof of Marshall McLuan's thesis that the medium is the message. "What you are going to say in the media leads the policy, rather than careful analysis of the merits before a decision, then thinking of how to present it. It is all led by what is said to the media; that leads to this superficiality."

But spin is not just Mr Campbell's creation, she says, "It is Tony's way of doing it." Perhaps it is just modern politics, with actors becoming politicians and politicians acting. She concedes: "It is a phenomenon that goes wider than Tony Blair."