Jon Snow
Blair and Europe – you heard it here first
Jon Snow blogs on the receding changes for the EU presidency to go to Tony Blair
-
Jon Snow
-
Gary Gibbon
Cameron wouldn’t start from Blair on EU president, but where will he end?
The Conservatives may, by default, end up supporting the sort of compromise, low-impact, low-profile, Europhile Benelux candidate that often ends up winning top European jobs and who Tories normally try to keep out.
-
Jon Snow
Will Blair supersize the EU presidency?
McDonald’s pulls out of Iceland as the country eyes European Union membership. Tony Blair EU presidency rumours continue.
-
Jon Snow
The Blair 'which job?' project
Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow asks why there was such a strong reaction to the idea the Tony Blair could become president of the EU.
-
Jon Snow
Has Iraq sunk Blair's presidency hopes?
The presidency of Europe is slipping rapidly from Tony Blair’s hands. My sources in Brussels and elsewhere report a rapid sea change in the former prime minister’s fortunes as ratification of the Lisbon treaty creeps closer (the Czech president could reluctantly sign it within a week). Those sources tell me that Blair’s candidacy has been…
-
Gary Gibbon
Military equipment rows are about more than just money
Why did Gordon Brown refuse the generals’ call for extra troops ahead of the Afghanistan/Pakistan strategic review published in April? It’s the real bugbear that underpins the other rows about equipment resurfacing today. The assumption amongst many in the MOD is that it was purely about money. But that might be underestimating the “political” elements…
-
Gary Gibbon
Iraq Inquiry could hear mountains of evidence
The Iraq Inquiry looks like being unveiled soon – maybe next week. Folk close to it are talking about mountains of evidence. Word is that the inquiry may have decided against those saying “get a lawyer.” The Hutton Inquiry used a barrister, James Dingemans QC, to question witnesses in the first round of evidence sessions.…
-
Jon Snow
As the US pulls out, what did the Iraq war achieve?
Iraq is a country I have visited many times since I was first there to report from the front line of the harrowing Iran/iraq war in 1980. Foreign intervention and interference has dogged it for more than a century. No wonder Baghdad is seized with parties and celebration. For the promised American pull-out from Iraq…
-
Jon Snow
Who’ll be the judge of Brown’s Iraq war inquiry?
Gordon Brown will announce an inquiry into the Iraq war this week. My sources tell me that this will not be chaired by a judge, senior or retired. It will be chaired instead by a historian. The hot tip in Whitehall is that it is likely to be the respected Churchill and Holocaust scholar Sir…
-
Jon Snow
Purnell goes – and rolls back the political sardine tin lid
Crumbs! An act of personal political courage – or of scheming personal political advancement? At this point almost impossible to judge. I don’t know James Purnell well. He was once a pivotal bag carrier, speech writer and muse inside Tony Blair’s Downing Street. Hence a Blairite, almost certainly well aware of, and wary of, Gordon…
-
Jon Snow
A spectacle we have never seen before
A political crisis This is a political spectacle none of us has ever seen before. The government is reshuffling itself. Hazel Blears has just shuffled herself out of the Cabinet. She’d have been fired anyway over her second homery and non-payment of capital gains tax. Two other ministers, one of them another woman, are expected…
-
Jon Snow
Tony Blair's expenses un-shredded!
I have been conducting an interesting correspondence with both Tony Blair’s office and the House of Commons commission which is currently dealing with MPs expenses. This follows my posting re. the shredding of Tony Blair’s expenses. A number of UK news outlets – the Times, Telegraph and Daily Mail among them – “revealed” that Blair’s…
-
Jon Snow
Why were Tony Blair's expenses shredded?
There has still been no explanation forthcoming as to why, amid all the other expenses details to have emerged from the Commons, only one named MP’s expenses seem to have been shredded. It has been reported that other MPs’ expenses were also shredded. But I can only find the name of one MP to whom…