Richard Heller
Posted on 26 Oct 2006 9:42 am (Report this annotation)

Tony Blair answered this question with a long chain of references to previous replies and press statements. Don't bother to trace the chain - it tells you nothing. Tony Blair does not want us to know how many visits he has made to wounded soldiers or bereaved families (on taxpayer money and as our Prime Minister). He is not protecting them - he is protecting himself.

Mark Bestford
Posted on 26 Oct 2006 10:22 am (Report this annotation)

I would be surprised if Tony Blair could even name the soldiers that have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'd guess that they're just numbers to him, a means to an end. When is he going to realise that the people who are dying out in Iraq and Afghanistan are the husbands and fathers and sons of real people, not statistics to be dropped when he feels like it. The only statistic that has real meaning is the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians that have died as a direct result of the invasion of Iraq.

Richard Johnson
Posted on 28 Oct 2006 2:11 pm (Report this annotation)

I've just been reading about the War of the Roses. It seems that Richard III was the last English king to die on the field of battle. It made me think. How about we pass a law saying that any Prime Minister who wants to take the country to war has to fight in the battles himself, as was expected of the kings of old. It would be a good way of testing if he really does think that it is a necessary war.

Owen Pearman
Posted on 30 Oct 2006 8:42 am (Report this annotation)

Why can't you tell us!
Why are you tring to pass the political buck?
Oh, sorry, you don't know any other way to run a country - why change now when you've been weasling out of decisions since you came into office!