- Wed Jan 05, 2022 12:04 pm
#17672
Briefly turned on LBC this morning after the Today programme finished at 9am to hear Ferrari (yes, I know) interviewing the former soldier "Colonel" Tim Collins on the apparently controversial subject of whether or not Tony Blair should be knighted.
Collins is (disproportionately, in my view) famous for delivering a rather fatuous, platitude-packed "eve of war" speech to some of the troops under his command at the start of the USA/British invasion of Iraq in 2003. Part of his speech runs thus :
[Regarding the use by Saddam of chemical or biological weapons] "It is not a question of if, it's a question of when. We know he has already devolved the decision to lower commanders, and that means he has already taken the decision himself. If we survive the first strike we will survive the attack."
"There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly. Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send. As for the others I expect you to rock their world. Wipe them out if that is what they choose. But if you are ferocious in battle remember to be magnanimous in victory."
Anyway, for some bizarre reason, Collins' opinion was being sought on whether Blair deserves his knighthood from the Queen or not. In summary, he opined that Blair did not, because he had attempted to "sideline" the monarch during his premiership and "displace" her with himself and Cherie, that he deserved no credit for the peace agreement in Northern Ireland because it was entirely the work of John Major, and that his decision to join the invasion of Iraq was (and my jaw was by this time on the floor) "an act of vanity".
Why is this transparent, hypocritical charlatan given any air-time at all? (I mean Collins, but I'd be ecstatic if Ferrari were permanently removed from all media).
Shocking stuff.
"The opportunity to serve our country: that is all we ask.” John Smith, May 11, 1994.