Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Son, we live in a world that has walls...

Blairwatch has more on the al Jazeera memo.

When it was first alleged that Bush and Blair had discussed bombing al Jazeera, many people noted that Blair did not actually issue an official denial. Blair said "[l]ook, there's a limit to what I can say - it's all sub judice, but honestly, I mean, conspiracy theories..." That's as fine an example of speaking while not actually saying anything as you're ever likely to find. The Prime Minister's official Spokesman refused to comment on the matter.

Today, for the first time, Tony Blair's official spokesman has issued an outright denial. The memo in quesion apparently does not contain any reference to discussions concerning bombing any Al Jazeera bureaux anywhere. Amusingly, the PMOS insisted that the claim had already been firmly denied. Er, when?

Anyway, this does raise the question as to why it is possible to issue this denial today when it was not possible to do so in November. The court case is still pending. Is increasing pressure being brought to bear on Blair to make this story disappear? Has this pressure forced him to issue this denial at this time? He has strenously avoided doing so up till now, after all.

Given the evidence available so far, today's statement appears to be highly questionable (I could have been a politician you know). Are the government going to publish the memo and give all of us suspicious blogger types red faces? *waits*

Alternatively, in the real world, the memo could be leaked by a whistleblower. There are around 350 bloggers standing by their desks and ready for action. If what the PMOS said today was a lie, the public definitely have a right to know. We just want to know the truth. Where's the harm in that?

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