In a shock move, last night, the UK’s Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, spectacularly failed to resign when given an open goal opportunity to do so. In a powerful and sometimes moving soliloquy from the floor of the House of Commons, Mr Hoon looked on as someone else made a dramatic speech demanding the Defence Secretary’s resignation. This was Mr Hoon’s reply:
I don’t know what all the fuss is about. I didn’t fool anyone important when I lied to the intelligence and security committee, just the proles.
Under strong media pressure, UK Premier Tony Blair also defended his beleaguered colleague:
Come on, guys, look, well, you know. Geoff can’t resign now, I need him to resign when the Hutton Report comes out. If I throw his body out the back of the plane before then, there’ll only be me left to carry the can, and I’m not having that. Don’t worry, you’ll get your scalp, but only when Mandy, Alastair, and I decide you will. We’ve got all the ‘least worst’ resignation moments mapped out on the grid, and it’s not Geoff’s turn yet. So can we draw a line under this, guys, and move on?
When pressed on whether it was a disastrous though retrievable situation for British troops to be in the line of fire, in Iraq, while their Ministry of Defence Chief hid in a hole in the ground in London waiting for his resignation grid appointment, a furious Mr Blair went on to add:
Look, come on, do you really think Geoff Hoon is the real Secretary of State for Defence? He’s just a stooge, a figurehead, a nobody. I’ve got one of my Downing Street boys running the real operation, and he’s reporting back directly to me. It makes the lines of control much easier.
Mr Archie Scroggins, 17, a former apprentice gas-fitter from Lewisham, was later revealed as this vital kitchen cabinet insider. His mother, Mrs Olive Scroggins, was as surprised as anyone:
Archie got this job installing a new boiler, in 10 Downing Street, and Mrs Blair took a shine to him. Archie’s been there ever since. He told me he was an assistant masseuse, when I saw him on telly in the back of a car with Tony. But to find out he’s Secretary of State for Defence is a mum’s dream come true! I’m made up for him! And he hasn’t even started shaving yet!
Archie Scroggins was later said to be unavailable for comment, as he was on a plane to Iraq to discuss British and American troop deployments. His father, Mr Reginald Scroggins, 74, was said to be down the pub.
‘Uk premier Tony Blair’??!! – who exactly are you writing for? Martians?
Samizdata imitates The Onion.
As you know Mr Hoon is a distraction (the latest in a long line of distractions).
The only question is whether Mr Blair was correct about the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in Iraq.
The claim was (if I understand it correctly) that for the government of Iraq to have such weapons was a violation of the cease fire agreement that ended the last Gulf war – in short that the present war was not a new war, but a continuation of the old one against the government of Iraq (the 1991 war being justified by the invasion of Kuwait).
Everything else (resolutions from the absurd United Nations Organization, what a nasty man the Dictator of Iraq was, what Mr Blair’s favourate colour is….) is beside the point.
Either the weapons are there (and I repeat it is still possible that they are) or Mr Blair must go.
Now the allied armies are in Iraq they will have to make the best of things (perhaps some Council of tribal elders and religous leaders can become a stable government – I do not know). But Mr Blair, without the “W.M.D.”, can not be tolerated as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
yes