Sunday, January 28, 2007

Blair Losing the Plot: No 94

I'm just watching Tony Blair being interviewed by Jon Sopel on the Politics Show. Is he pissed? A quite astonishing performance by the PM. Either he just doesn't give a damn anymore or he's been on the Davos gluehwein...

You can see what I mean by watching the programme HERE. Blair starts, about eight minutes in.

43 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who? Blair or Jon Sopel?

Anonymous said...

Seemed like more "Call me Tony" bluster, spin and prevarication from our Dear Leader. I wish that idiot would sod off.

I do find it disheartening that the international community seem to be in thrall to Blair in a similar fashion to the country back in the '94-97 days. Will they come to loathe him after 10 years as we have?

Anonymous said...

I agree it was pitiful. he looked like he can still just brush stuff away and people will accept it. His reaction to comments about cabinet members breaking ranks showed out deluded he is, he simply laughed it off, every time.

He only has a few weeks left in him, one push from Gordo and the party will act. I hope.

Anonymous said...

Surprised that he walked into the trap on the dropping of the BAe fraud inquiry after pressure from the Saudis

Anonymous said...

I don't know whether the Bliar is pissed, but I am listening to the complete arse.

Anonymous said...

Edited highlights (in print) would be useful, since I'm allergic to pancake make-up, megalomania and self-justifying garbage.

Anonymous said...

Blair was looking very rough and harassed to me ,do you think the pressure is getting to him ?

Anonymous said...

Blair made Sopel look like a tough interviewer...how that ?

Anonymous said...

You might not agree, but I think Jon Sopel is a very good interviewer.

He had Patricia Hewitt on one week, and he kept repeating a question, in a Paxo style, when she was being evasive and equivocal. Tough, but courteous - searching, but balanced & impartial.

Anonymous said...

I don't think he looks 'pissed' but he does look tired and a tad edgy.

Anonymous said...

transcript available on www.bbc.co.uk/politicsshow


Sopel did a good job

Anonymous said...

He's become a caricature of his former self.

Sopel asked serious questions (a change for the Beeb) and he just laughed! Crazy!

Anonymous said...

I doubt there has ever been such a rambling and pathetic interview performance by a so-called "statesman":

TONY BLAIR: Yeah but you know, I think most people would accept that at least you know, there's got to be some process of transition, if you're saying, cos the whole context in which I was saying that was...

TONY BLAIR: It's not just that I won't talk about the investigation. I just won't talk about it full stop, cos anyway, in the weeks to come it will finish as an enquiry and why don't we just wait for that time.


The man is a joke, beyond parody. He has completely lost the plot, probably because of the two ghosts of Iraq and Yates of the Yard. Rory Bremner should be counting his blessings that he has a wider repertoire!

Anonymous said...

As New Labour have lost prisoners, files and track of paedophiles, what is so unusual about losing the plot?

Anonymous said...

Not exactly the best weather for a speech on global warming was it?

The Military Wing Of The BBC said...

*******! - missed it

anyone know were it can be viewed again?

if he is falling apart I want to see it.

Anonymous said...

He certainly wasn't up to his usual standard, I'm glad though that he still managed to steer the conversation in the direction of both his and my favourite subject. All the good things that Labour have done and just how bad the tories were when they were in power.

Of particular note was the point about the apalling state of affairs at the Home Office in 1997.

Anonymous said...

Blair looked like a small-time crook to me, as ever. Not a thug with a concealed knife and an air of menace about him, but rather an easy, careless disregard for basic morality such as telling the truth and operating within the rules/law, ans a "laugh-it-all-off" approach to the criticisms. Much like petty criminials in this country, in other words, who know that they never face anything like the traditional penalty for their wrondoing.

A major felon? No. A minor felon with a string of charges to answer and deserving of incarceration for his misdemeanours? Yes.

Anonymous said...

I have never seen him so detached from reality? Utterly bizarre interview!
Did wonder if he was going through the motions during the interview, with his mind very distracted by other pressing concerns?

Anonymous said...

Blair knows he could arrested in a few weeks - how would you feel.

Anonymous said...

During the course of the interview, the following were repeated:

"Yeah" - 18 times
"You know" - 46 times
"erm" - 26 times
"Actually" - 16 times
"Look" - 15 times

Mr Sopel was not a major contributor of these words, to say the least!

As anyone who knows a little about public speaking will testify, these words are verbal "tics" and indicate unease or nervousness.

Anonymous said...

"Cos" - 5 times.

"Cos" and "yeah" are the stock phrases of the feckless chav classes. So much for one of the best educations money could buy!

Anonymous said...

Tone Made Me Do It - Me too. I want to pour a drink with malice aforethought and enjoy it.

I'm so pleased he's falling apart in public. I've always thought he looked and spoke like a small time conman. Not as good as Peter Wossname,Carol Caplin's Ozzie boyfriend.

Anonymous said...

Jess The Dog said...

"During the course of the interview, the following were repeated: ..."

That is the sign of a man with ALOT of his mind on other things.

I would have to agree that he may only have weeks left in his job. Perhaps he is hoping the Deputy Leadership race will distract from his own downfall.

Anonymous said...

The Man is completely deluded, its bunker mentality, the body language says as much

Anonymous said...

What odds that the beeb manages to do some nifty editing and make him sound stateman-like for the evening news-grovel?

Anonymous said...

I'm watching it now on the BBC website. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/default.stm

Blair interview starts at about 8mm in

Anonymous said...

He might not be drunk, maybe just exhausted. Although the laughing is creepy. Really creepy when it gets to talking about Hain.

Anonymous said...

I think most blog's these days are now getting full of spin ,they even use proof reader's ,take a look at the yahoo one's ,it's new way lie to we the ignorant trash

Anonymous said...

I don't know whether he is pissed in th alchohol sense, he is certaintly pissed with his own importance. I cannot watch him being interviewed, it just seems a complete waste of the interviewer's and my time. There actually seems little point in giving him air time, surely the media can guess what his answers are going to be before he opens his mouth. He never deviates from his Messianic mantra. He reminds me of the guy, Dr Strange, a comic book character from the fifties. This gentleman's 'Ethreal self' used to leave his body and he existed on a different plane. Us mortals could only see his torpid, physical body, but his 'Ethreal self' was out doing great works. Very much like Blair, totally detached from reality. To him the world he exists in is perfect. The unfortunate thing for normal people, is that we just do not have access to this other world Blair can co-exist in, at will.

I suppose it is possible to buy into this wonderful state of mind. I presume, that is the reason so many tycoons were prepared to stump up the cash. For the rest of us it may be better in the longrun to stay rooted firmly to this earth. Not perfect but it can only get better, (hopefully). Blair, runs the risk of leaving his earthly body once to often and disappearing up his own arse when he tries to get back in, never to be heard of again in the real world of people.

shergar said...

All that's left...some grainy newsreel of a tired and emotional PM handing out commendations to a line of young Ultras in the back of 10 Downing Street.
Every day past his sell-by he spends in the bunker is another day the nation grows more and more impatient with him and his entire corrupt crew.
Stay, Tone, you're doing wonderfully.

Yak40 said...

Trouble is, Brown is in the wings and even his coronation won't change the utter incompetence of the whole sorry bunch.

Anonymous said...

Good interview from Sopel, if people think he normally floats like a butterfly he was stinging like a wasp today. I've never heard so much nervous laughter from Blair, the loans for lordships affair is really getting to him.

Lets hope that there will always be a tory backbencher to lob a question on the loans scandal at PMQs while Cameron gets on with the predictable stuff like the Home Office.

I can't see the cabinet taking much more of this. I think there will be a coup in the next couple of months if Yates doesn't arrest him first.

Anonymous said...

"I can't see the cabinet taking much more of this. I think there will be a coup in the next couple of months..."

Brian in the Tamar Valley,
Would you be so kind as to set out the mechanics of this coup? - Who will lead it, which associates will organize it? Who will they be organizing? And by precisely what means will their activities be delivered to their target?

Always asuming, as you remark, that "... Yates doesn't arrest him first."

But you suggest, very plainly, a coup, and I am assuming you mean a political undertaking rather than military or constitutional action.

Anonymous said...

There will be no coup methinks. they tried it once but were too cowardly to carry it through to the endgame.
More likely Blair resigns first and likely before the Local Elections if the Cash for Honours enquiry leads to arrest(s)

Anonymous said...

Possibly a mixture of valium and booze. Blair is clearly deranged these days and is only hanging on to try to prevent Brown taking over.

The longer Blair stays in situ the more Brown's chances of the succesion deteriorate though he and his followers have succeeded in destroying Reid's challenge in recent days (with help from Reid himself of course)

The more serious structural problems in the economy become evident over forthcoming weeks and months the more Brown's star will fade.

He was hoping to have been out of the Treasury and into No 10 long before now.

Anonymous said...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=432012&in_page_id=1770

Anonymous said...

It's a sad and shameful fact that the Prime Minister of Great Britain is a deluded megalomaniac, a compulsive liar and fantasist and is shamelessly hanging on way past his sell by date. He postures and preens for all the world to see and is blind to the scorn and derision coming at him from all quarters.

The only one who can really give him the push is a confirmed coward who prefers skulking and plotting in the dark to straight dealing and honest endeavour. Not only that but he is probably every bit as deranged as Blair with an inbuilt hatred of the English to boot.

When Blair does go I fear we will be out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Anonymous said...

Reminiscent of the last days of Hitler, as portrayed in the film Downfall.

I wonder if Bliar will go within the next week. Sinn Fein have voted to accept the PSNI. If the DUP return to power-sharing, Bliar could be tempted to reiterate the "hand of history" speech and to pretend that peace in Northern Ireland is all his doing. There aren't many other palatable legacy options!

Anonymous said...

I have never seen such an awful interview by a PM in over 35 years. The condescending smile was a real turn off. He is either pissed, pissed off or pissed on!

Anonymous said...

Confirms what I thought when I saw film of him a few days ago - he looks ill.

Early stirrings of a break down, I'd say.

And I'm not at all surprised, since he knows that the 'x' Files are coming crashing down on him very soon.

Given what Guido has on him...I wouldn't want to be in Blair's shoes.

Curly said...

Yes he must be losing the plot, the document that the Sunday Telegraph claimed was found by Yates in 10 Downing Street must have something to do with it. A customer of mine kindly sent a copy of it to Curly's Corner Shop.

Anonymous said...

bt said...
Edited highlights (in print) would be useful, since I'm allergic to pancake make-up, megalomania and self-justifying garbage.

Have done this on blog rather than print and although people here say he sounds drunk, when you see it written down, Our Dear Leader sounds more like Vicky Pollard. However, I have always thought Tony Blair was a bit of a chav.