Sledgehammers and nuts

I'm writing this at 1pm. In about 1 hour Tony Blair will make his last (Hoo-bloody-ray) conference speech as Labour leader and PM. Wouldn't it be great if he went mad and started flinging mud at Gordon Brown. Gordon has already made his speech. He admitted "differences" between himself and the PM over the years, but claimed it had been a privilidge to work with him. Gordon was not in a position to go mad and sling mud. He still wants party support for the top job. It could be argued however, that Tony has nothing to lose.

Gordon's performance was rather overshadowed by reports that Tony's wife, or the Blair Witch as I like to call her, was heard to call Gordon a liar under her breath as he made his speech. Mrs Blair has since denied making the comment, but it has a distinct ring of truth about it if you ask me. Peter Mandleson, perhaps the most openly unpleasant politician of our time, has now joined the row and claimed that Gordon never did recover from the sacrifice of agreeing not to stand against Blair as leader over ten years ago.

I heard an interesting argument this morning attempting to justify the George Bush position regarding the Iraq war. The comments came from Dennis Miller on the Penn Jillette Radio show on free FM. I don't know who Dennis Miller is, but he is apparently a Bush Supporter and a comedian. He said that Bush was taking these steps because he was looking way ahead into the future and that he would only be recognised for doing the right thing many years from now, and probably not even in his own lifetime.

Now, make no mistake, I disagree with this statement completely, but it made me sit up and think. Up until now I have firmly believed that this war was a result of simple dislike for Islam and desire for 9-11 revenge. But it could be that Bush really thinks that Islam may be destined to change the world, perhaps centuries from now, and that a war was the only way to stop it. It's an interesting theory, and no intelligent poilitician is going to pursue this type of philosophy because it's not a vote winner. But of course, Bush is not intelligent, unless I misunderestimated him.

Like I said, I don't hold with this theory, it just added a new dimension for me. I still think that Saddam was a nut and the war was a sledgehammer.

Yesterday there was a free Gone With the Wind film poster in the Times. I swiped one from the first class carriage on the train. They give the Times away free to first class passengers. There is apparently a free classic film poster every day this week in the Times. I don't actually want these posters, but for some reason it became very important for me to try and swipe today's paper, just to see what the poster was. Unfortunately I didn't manage it. There just weren't any swipable papers there this morning, so I will have to try again this evening. I hope it's Cassablanca. One of them has to be Cassablanca doesn't it?

I just read that Tony did not go bonkers and trash Gordon Brown in his speech. I guess he did feel he had something to lose. Sad, but not entirely unexpected. What do you think Tony's next project will be? I don't think it's any great secret that he wants to be Euro President, but that job just isn't available, and may never be. He could attempt to move into US politics. He's been sucking up to George for years and he does seem to have a certain celebrity status in the US, which appears to be the prime qulaity required of US politicians.

There is a Beryl Cook exhibition in London and I so want to go and see it. I'm wondering if I can find the time and the money to make it up there in the next couple of weeks before it closes. It'll be a pain in the arse with the baby though.