Lick my boot, you dog!
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi insulted then British prime minister Tony Blair by pointing the sole of a shoe towards him when the two met in a Bedouin tent outside Tripoli in March 2004. Close watchers of the talks noticed Gaddafi's foot pointing towards Blair, thus offering the worst of all insults. In the Arab world, shoes are considered unclean, signifying the lowliest and dirtiest part of the body. Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Al-Quds newspaper, said: "The only thing worse would be a physical attack." Ibrahim Nawar, head of Arab Press Freedom Watch, said: "It was a deliberate act. He wanted to make Tony Blair look very, very small. You never show your shoe to anyone you remotely respect. Blair must know enough about Arab culture to realise he was being humiliated."
Tony Blair, Drama Queen
Tony Blair's account of what was said when he went to kiss hands with the Queen in 1997 has led to accusations of plagiarism. Screenwriter Peter Morgan suspects the former prime minister took a line for his memoirs, A Journey, not from his actual conversation with the Queen, but the Oscar-winning film about her starring Helen Mirren. In his memoirs, Blair claims that the Queen said to him: "You are my tenth prime minister. The first was Winston. That was before you were born." In Morgan's script to the 2006 film The Queen, the Queen tells Blair: "You are my tenth prime minister, Mr Blair. My first was Winston Churchill." Morgan insists he made up those lines. "Either I guessed absolutely perfectly, which is highly unlikely, or Blair decided to endorse what I imagined as the official line, or he had one gin and tonic too many and confused the scene in the film with what had actually happened, and this I find amusing because he always insisted he had never even seen the film," Morgan surmised. Stephen Frears, who directed The Queen, laughed when told of the coincidence. "Now people will accuse us of bugging them," he said.
Blair: "I am 100% on Israel's side"
I express deep regret and shock at the tragic loss of life. There has to be a full investigation into what has happened. I repeat my view that we need a different and better way of helping the people of Gaza.
http://www.tonyblairoffice.org/quartet/news-entry/statement-by-quartet-representative-tony-blair-on-the-gaza-flotilla/
There are no questions at all. There have been rockets fired from Gaza, there are people in Gaza who want to kill innocent Israelis. When it comes to security, I am one hundred percent on Israel's side.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=177875
Blair Strikes Oil in Iraq
Since he stepped down as British prime minister, the West's Mideast envoy Tony Blair pocketed more than $30 million in oil revenues from secret dealings with a South Korean oil consortium, UI Energy Corporation. Despite his best efforts to keep his connection to UI secret, word is spreading like wildfire. Blair has tried to prevent disclosures of his relationship with the South Korean oil firm. His relationship with UI Energy may precede his departure as prime minister. It is also quite conceivable that his dedication to keeping this matter confidential was meant to protect other international political figures. Other prominent politicians on UI Energy's payroll include former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke, Congressman Stephen Solarz, former defense secretary Frank Carlucci, and US Mideast Commander General John Abizaid. These are only some of those who acknowledge association with UI Energy.
Things my taxi driver told me
An Iraqi taxi driver may have been the source of the discredited claim that Saddam Hussein could unleash weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, a Tory MP claimed today.
Adam Holloway, a defence specialist, said MI6 obtained information indirectly from a taxi driver who had overheard two Iraqi military commanders talking about Saddam's weapons.http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/dec/08/45-minutes-wmd-taxi-driver
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