A CLEAR majority of people in Britain now think the war on Iraq was wrong. An opinion poll in the Guardian on Monday showed 53 percent think the war was unjustified and only 38 percent believe it was right to attack Iraq. This is the reality looming over Tony Blair at his party's conference starting on Sunday.
THERE IS an escalating war in Iraq. The lying politicians who launched the invasion six months ago won't admit it. But it's the only honest conclusion from the terrible death toll. The director of the Baghdad central mortuary told the New York Times how the number of killings has rocketed under the last five months of occupation. There were 462 in May, 626 in June, 751 in July and 872 in August. Most of them, about 70 percent, were shot dead. That is in just one city.
TONY BLAIR will go if the anger over his lies and the war on Iraq comes together with the deep bitterness about people's lives in Britain. And that no longer seems a remote possibility. Blair's popularity and satisfaction with the government are both plummeting. The ebbing of support recalls nothing so much as the death throes of Tory leaders Thatcher and Major.
SUPPORT FOR the occupation of Iraq is melting away.
TONY BLAIR is the dead man walking of British politics. That much was clear even before he appeared before the Hutton inquiry this week. The problems for Blair are deeper than those caused by the death of scientist Dr David Kelly.
AUGUST IS traditionally part of the "Silly Season" when the press scrabbles to find serious news to fill its pages. This year things have been very different. The Hutton inquiry into the death of the scientist David Kelly has ensured that Iraq and the scandal over weapons of mass destruction have remained in the media spotlight.
AS THE lies told to justify the war on Iraq unravelled in a courtroom in London, the reality of the occupation of Iraq by US and British troops was shown on our TV screens. For months we have been told that British troops, with their "softly, softly" approach to dealing with civilian populations, had won the trust of the Iraqi people.
AROUND 100 years ago socialists talked about the choice facing humanity as that between "socialism and barbarism". That barbarism is not only seen in the horror of war, but also in capitalism's destruction of the environment.
TONY BLAIR has been forced to admit that his official spokesman tried to discredit dead weapons expert David Kelly as a "Walter Mitty" fantasist. That revelation came on the eve of Kelly's funeral. The timing showed just how callous this government is, but also how it is desperately losing control. There are now bitter recriminations between three of the central institutions that promote capitalist stability in Britain-the government, the BBC, and the secret services.
TONY BLAIR is in a crisis for one reason - his whole case for war on Iraq was based on a great lie. To justify that lie, Blair lied again, and again and again. He constructed a pyramid of lies and now that pyramid is collapsing around him. Blair's government is in chaos. The BBC and the government are at each other's throats. More and more people, in the media, the Labour Party and the establishment, are calling for Blair to go.
TONY BLAIR headed off this week to Sir Cliff Richard's Sugar Hill estate in Barbados for a luxury holiday. But he won't be able to escape the reality that New Labour is falling apart.
TENS OF thousands of people flocked to Hyde Park in London last Saturday as part of the annual lesbian and gay Pride event. The march from the Embankment grew and grew as people joined in along the route. It followed the path taken by the great stop the war marches, and many people on the Pride demonstration took leaflets for September's march against the occupation.
