The Killing$ Of Tony Blair: A Review

There were two reviews of this film - Wendy Ibe at The Observer and Martyn Conterio at Cine-Vue - which resolutely and violently played the man and not the ball in a manner which called to mind an unreconstructed Joey Barton. Even Dr. Kermode put the boot in. The reviewers' ire was aimed squarely at George Galloway rather than its subject: Tony Blair and the iridescent conflagration he has unleashed. 

Ms. Ibe stated that watching this film had the effect of, "making you want to side with Blair and the long list of despots who – apparently – now list him on their payroll." Mr. Conterio described Galloway as, "A bitter Labour Party reject," who intones solemnly, "as if he's recounting a horror story around a campfire." Neither of these surprisingly vitriolic reviews gave any clue as to the content of the movie itself - indeed Ms. Ibe's review ran to a single paragraph. These and many other reviews amounted to nothing more than mere character assassination. I had contributed to the crowdfunding of the film via Kickstarter so I wanted to know if it was any good. Plus I'm a bit of a Galloway fan and have been since I heard him give the US Senate Committee a kicking in May of 2005.

On a bright Sunday evening last month I hopped onto the M62 and made my way to the Picturehouse at FACT in Liverpool. It's a lovely building with a cool interior and it costs £6.50 for a bag of nuts and a can of Red Bull. As I'm contacting my bank for an overdraft extension I spot Mr. Galloway and his family chilling in a booth near the bar area. George is rocking a high level of Dappertivity - black jacket, black waistcoat and trademarked black Trilby - scrolling through his 'phone while his wife, Gayatri, is occupied with a young son who is also wearing a fetching black jacket, black waistcoat and black trilby ensemble. 

I walked expectantly into the packed auditorium and took my seat, smack bang in the middle of row 3. George gave a brief introduction and we were off. Despite the obvious low budget (we're treated to stilted musical facsimiles of ABBA's Money, Money, Money; Madness' Our House; and Dead Or Alive's You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) rather than the originals, and I noticed some stock footage that I myself used in Damaged Gods' Junky For The Bloodshed music video) it is a forensic evisceration of Tony Blair and his ridiculously shady career. 

George Galloway's enmity towards his subject is barely veiled. It is clear that he has come to bury Tony Blair, not to praise him and the astute contributors (Will Self, Stephen Fry, Peter Oborne, Seumas Milne, David Davis, Clare Short, Ken Livingstone and Noam Chomsky) are more than happy to grab the shovel and eagerly heap on the dirt. Spoiler alert: you won't find any balance in this documentary. There isn't a single person who speaks up on his behalf, although Lauren Booth acknowledge Our Tone's charm and tells George even he would be seduced. George ponders this for the very briefest of moments, "Perhaps..." before concluding, "But then I'd have to arrest him." 

The film analyses Tony’s political career, his spell as Prime Minister, the decision to hook up with George Dubya in invading Iraq, his subsequent role as the Middle-East peace envoy and the creation of Tony Blair Inc. to handle his public appearances and consultancy fees for advising despots and dictators on the softening of their public image. The reputational damage to the role of politician is irrevocable. We don't trust them any longer precisely because of the lies of Tony Blair and his attack dog, Alistair Campbell.

In the twin shadows of the Chilcot Report (Hey! Whatever happened to that?) and the Labour Leadership race the film is chillingly apposite. It's a powerful work which leaves you both sad and angry: sad at the needless waste of life and angry that the sham of "Western Democracy" means that 2 million people marching through the streets of London in opposition to an illegal war makes absolutely no difference to those who make our decisions for us.

Blair has created a worrying blueprint for future prime ministers: hand out favours to vested interests when in office to quangos, foreign governments, dictators, arms dealers, etc., and then when you retire, they pay you lucrative sums for speeches and consultancy work.

After the film I waited to see my name in a tiny font with 4,999 other Kickstarters as part of the credits. The screen faded to black and George asked us all to imagine for a moment a million names for those Iraqis who died at our behest. I felt my stomach lurch. Big George took a stack of questions from the audience until we were asked to vacate the theatre for the evening showing of Star Trek Beyond. I posed for a selfie with The Cat In The Hat and then made my way home. Still numb from what I'd seen.    

If Mr. Conterio doesn't understand that over a million dead (there was a deliberate strategy NOT to count the dead as a means to sustain popular support for continued action in Iraq), the Middle-East region in flames and the world's security destabilised is a horror story then I would suggest he is a tad too removed from reality and I feel genuinely sorry for him. 

It's easily the best film I've seen this year and it's nauseating to watch the Blair fans reviewing this documentary as they exercise their gag reflex on the rigidity of Tony's three election wins whilst completely ignoring the toxicity of his legacy. Outside of the middle-class luvvie bubble Tony is so despised that he had to cancel a tour to promote his memoirs after he was pelted with eggs and shoes at his first public signing in Dublin.

People abhor Blair for more than just Iraq. They detest him for maintaining the commodification of public services via PFI. They are angry at the betrayal of Labour values in the pursuit of power. Jeremy Corbyn's success is a direct reaction to this.

This documentary has topped both the iTunes and Amazon charts. I'm aware that George Galloway's politics aren't for everyone, but, as Withnail says, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. It may well be frustrating to some, or indeed most, but on Tony Blair Gorgeous George is dead on. Pun intended.

The Killing$ Of Tony Blair: A Review

There were two reviews of this film - Wendy Ibe at The Observer and Martyn Conterio at Cine-Vue - which resolutely and violently played the man and not the ball in a manner which called to mind an unreconstructed Joey Barton. Even Dr. Kermode put the boot in. The reviewers' ire was aimed squarely at George Galloway rather than its subject: Tony Blair and the iridescent conflagration he has unleashed. 

Ms. Ibe stated that watching this film had the effect of, "making you want to side with Blair and the long list of despots who – apparently – now list him on their payroll." Mr. Conterio described Galloway as, "A bitter Labour Party reject," who intones solemnly, "as if he's recounting a horror story around a campfire." Neither of these surprisingly vitriolic reviews gave any clue as to the content of the movie itself - indeed Ms. Ibe's review ran to a single paragraph. These and many other reviews amounted to nothing more than mere character assassination. I had contributed to the crowdfunding of the film via Kickstarter so I wanted to know if it was any good. Plus I'm a bit of a Galloway fan and have been since I heard him give the US Senate Committee a kicking in May of 2005.

On a bright Sunday evening last month I hopped onto the M62 and made my way to the Picturehouse at FACT in Liverpool. It's a lovely building with a cool interior and it costs £6.50 for a bag of nuts and a can of Red Bull. As I'm contacting my bank for an overdraft extension I spot Mr. Galloway and his family chilling in a booth near the bar area. George is rocking a high level of Dappertivity - black jacket, black waistcoat and trademarked black Trilby - scrolling through his 'phone while his wife, Gayatri, is occupied with a young son who is also wearing a fetching black jacket, black waistcoat and black trilby ensemble. 

I walked expectantly into the packed auditorium and took my seat, smack bang in the middle of row 3. George gave a brief introduction and we were off. Despite the obvious low budget (we're treated to stilted musical facsimiles of ABBA's Money, Money, Money; Madness' Our House; and Dead Or Alive's You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) rather than the originals, and I noticed some stock footage that I myself used in Damaged Gods' Junky For The Bloodshed music video) it is a forensic evisceration of Tony Blair and his ridiculously shady career. 

George Galloway's enmity towards his subject is barely veiled. It is clear that he has come to bury Tony Blair, not to praise him and the astute contributors (Will Self, Stephen Fry, Peter Oborne, Seumas Milne, David Davis, Clare Short, Ken Livingstone and Noam Chomsky) are more than happy to grab the shovel and eagerly heap on the dirt. Spoiler alert: you won't find any balance in this documentary. There isn't a single person who speaks up on his behalf, although Lauren Booth acknowledge Our Tone's charm and tells George even he would be seduced. George ponders this for the very briefest of moments, "Perhaps..." before concluding, "But then I'd have to arrest him." 

The film analyses Tony’s political career, his spell as Prime Minister, the decision to hook up with George Dubya in invading Iraq, his subsequent role as the Middle-East peace envoy and the creation of Tony Blair Inc. to handle his public appearances and consultancy fees for advising despots and dictators on the softening of their public image. The reputational damage to the role of politician is irrevocable. We don't trust them any longer precisely because of the lies of Tony Blair and his attack dog, Alistair Campbell.

In the twin shadows of the Chilcot Report (Hey! Whatever happened to that?) and the Labour Leadership race the film is chillingly apposite. It's a powerful work which leaves you both sad and angry: sad at the needless waste of life and angry that the sham of "Western Democracy" means that 2 million people marching through the streets of London in opposition to an illegal war makes absolutely no difference to those who make our decisions for us.

Blair has created a worrying blueprint for future prime ministers: hand out favours to vested interests when in office to quangos, foreign governments, dictators, arms dealers, etc., and then when you retire, they pay you lucrative sums for speeches and consultancy work.

After the film I waited to see my name in a tiny font with 4,999 other Kickstarters as part of the credits. The screen faded to black and George asked us all to imagine for a moment a million names for those Iraqis who died at our behest. I felt my stomach lurch. Big George took a stack of questions from the audience until we were asked to vacate the theatre for the evening showing of Star Trek Beyond. I posed for a selfie with The Cat In The Hat and then made my way home. Still numb from what I'd seen.    

If Mr. Conterio doesn't understand that over a million dead (there was a deliberate strategy NOT to count the dead as a means to sustain popular support for continued action in Iraq), the Middle-East region in flames and the world's security destabilised is a horror story then I would suggest he is a tad too removed from reality and I feel genuinely sorry for him. 

It's easily the best film I've seen this year and it's nauseating to watch the Blair fans reviewing this documentary as they exercise their gag reflex on the rigidity of Tony's three election wins whilst completely ignoring the toxicity of his legacy. Outside of the middle-class luvvie bubble Tony is so despised that he had to cancel a tour to promote his memoirs after he was pelted with eggs and shoes at his first public signing in Dublin.

People abhor Blair for more than just Iraq. They detest him for maintaining the commodification of public services via PFI. They are angry at the betrayal of Labour values in the pursuit of power. Jeremy Corbyn's success is a direct reaction to this.

This documentary has topped both the iTunes and Amazon charts. I'm aware that George Galloway's politics aren't for everyone, but, as Withnail says, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. It may well be frustrating to some, or indeed most, but on Tony Blair Gorgeous George is dead on. Pun intended.

The Killing$ Of Tony Blair: A Review

There were two reviews of this film - Wendy Ibe at The Observer and Martyn Conterio at Cine-Vue - which resolutely and violently played the man and not the ball in a manner which called to mind an unreconstructed Joey Barton. Even Dr. Kermode put the boot in. The reviewers' ire was aimed squarely at George Galloway rather than its subject: Tony Blair and the iridescent conflagration he has unleashed. 

Ms. Ibe stated that watching this film had the effect of, "making you want to side with Blair and the long list of despots who – apparently – now list him on their payroll." Mr. Conterio described Galloway as, "A bitter Labour Party reject," who intones solemnly, "as if he's recounting a horror story around a campfire." Neither of these surprisingly vitriolic reviews gave any clue as to the content of the movie itself - indeed Ms. Ibe's review ran to a single paragraph. These and many other reviews amounted to nothing more than mere character assassination. I had contributed to the crowdfunding of the film via Kickstarter so I wanted to know if it was any good. Plus I'm a bit of a Galloway fan and have been since I heard him give the US Senate Committee a kicking in May of 2005.

On a bright Sunday evening last month I hopped onto the M62 and made my way to the Picturehouse at FACT in Liverpool. It's a lovely building with a cool interior and it costs £6.50 for a bag of nuts and a can of Red Bull. As I'm contacting my bank for an overdraft extension I spot Mr. Galloway and his family chilling in a booth near the bar area. George is rocking a high level of Dappertivity - black jacket, black waistcoat and trademarked black Trilby - scrolling through his 'phone while his wife, Gayatri, is occupied with a young son who is also wearing a fetching black jacket, black waistcoat and black trilby ensemble. 

I walked expectantly into the packed auditorium and took my seat, smack bang in the middle of row 3. George gave a brief introduction and we were off. Despite the obvious low budget (we're treated to stilted musical facsimiles of ABBA's Money, Money, Money; Madness' Our House; and Dead Or Alive's You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) rather than the originals, and I noticed some stock footage that I myself used in Damaged Gods' Junky For The Bloodshed music video) it is a forensic evisceration of Tony Blair and his ridiculously shady career. 

George Galloway's enmity towards his subject is barely veiled. It is clear that he has come to bury Tony Blair, not to praise him and the astute contributors (Will Self, Stephen Fry, Peter Oborne, Seumas Milne, David Davis, Clare Short, Ken Livingstone and Noam Chomsky) are more than happy to grab the shovel and eagerly heap on the dirt. Spoiler alert: you won't find any balance in this documentary. There isn't a single person who speaks up on his behalf, although Lauren Booth acknowledge Our Tone's charm and tells George even he would be seduced. George ponders this for the very briefest of moments, "Perhaps..." before concluding, "But then I'd have to arrest him." 

The film analyses Tony’s political career, his spell as Prime Minister, the decision to hook up with George Dubya in invading Iraq, his subsequent role as the Middle-East peace envoy and the creation of Tony Blair Inc. to handle his public appearances and consultancy fees for advising despots and dictators on the softening of their public image. The reputational damage to the role of politician is irrevocable. We don't trust them any longer precisely because of the lies of Tony Blair and his attack dog, Alistair Campbell.

In the twin shadows of the Chilcot Report (Hey! Whatever happened to that?) and the Labour Leadership race the film is chillingly apposite. It's a powerful work which leaves you both sad and angry: sad at the needless waste of life and angry that the sham of "Western Democracy" means that 2 million people marching through the streets of London in opposition to an illegal war makes absolutely no difference to those who make our decisions for us.

Blair has created a worrying blueprint for future prime ministers: hand out favours to vested interests when in office to quangos, foreign governments, dictators, arms dealers, etc., and then when you retire, they pay you lucrative sums for speeches and consultancy work.

After the film I waited to see my name in a tiny font with 4,999 other Kickstarters as part of the credits. The screen faded to black and George asked us all to imagine for a moment a million names for those Iraqis who died at our behest. I felt my stomach lurch. Big George took a stack of questions from the audience until we were asked to vacate the theatre for the evening showing of Star Trek Beyond. I posed for a selfie with The Cat In The Hat and then made my way home. Still numb from what I'd seen.    

If Mr. Conterio doesn't understand that over a million dead (there was a deliberate strategy NOT to count the dead as a means to sustain popular support for continued action in Iraq), the Middle-East region in flames and the world's security destabilised is a horror story then I would suggest he is a tad too removed from reality and I feel genuinely sorry for him. 

It's easily the best film I've seen this year and it's nauseating to watch the Blair fans reviewing this documentary as they exercise their gag reflex on the rigidity of Tony's three election wins whilst completely ignoring the toxicity of his legacy. Outside of the middle-class luvvie bubble Tony is so despised that he had to cancel a tour to promote his memoirs after he was pelted with eggs and shoes at his first public signing in Dublin.

People abhor Blair for more than just Iraq. They detest him for maintaining the commodification of public services via PFI. They are angry at the betrayal of Labour values in the pursuit of power. 

This documentary has topped both the iTunes and Amazon charts and has just received its Irish Premier. I'm aware that George Galloway's politics aren't for everyone, but, as Withnail says, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. It may well be frustrating to some, or indeed most, but on Tony Blair Gorgeous George is dead on. Pun intended.

The Killing$ Of Tony Blair: A Review

There were two reviews of this film - Wendy Ibe at The Observer and Martyn Conterio at Cine-Vue - which resolutely and violently played the man and not the ball in a manner which called to mind an unreconstructed Joey Barton. Even Dr. Kermode put the boot in. The reviewers' ire was aimed squarely at George Galloway rather than its subject: Tony Blair and the iridescent conflagration he has unleashed. 

Ms. Ibe stated that watching this film had the effect of, "making you want to side with Blair and the long list of despots who – apparently – now list him on their payroll." Mr. Conterio described Galloway as, "A bitter Labour Party reject," who intones solemnly, "as if he's recounting a horror story around a campfire." Neither of these surprisingly vitriolic reviews gave any clue as to the content of the movie itself - indeed Ms. Ibe's review ran to a single paragraph. These and many other reviews amounted to nothing more than mere character assassination. I had contributed to the crowdfunding of the film via Kickstarter so I wanted to know if it was any good. Plus I'm a bit of a Galloway fan and have been since I heard him give the US Senate Committee a kicking in May of 2005.

On a bright Sunday evening last month I hopped onto the M62 and made my way to the Picturehouse at FACT in Liverpool. It's a lovely building with a cool interior and it costs £6.50 for a bag of nuts and a can of Red Bull. As I'm contacting my bank for an overdraft extension I spot Mr. Galloway and his family chilling in a booth near the bar area. George is rocking a high level of Dappertivity - black jacket, black waistcoat and trademarked black Trilby - scrolling through his 'phone while his wife, Gayatri, is occupied with a young son who is also wearing a fetching black jacket, black waistcoat and black trilby ensemble. 

I walked expectantly into the packed auditorium and took my seat, smack bang in the middle of row 3. George gave a brief introduction and we were off. Despite the obvious low budget (we're treated to stilted musical facsimiles of ABBA's Money, Money, Money; Madness' Our House; and Dead Or Alive's You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) rather than the originals, and I noticed some stock footage that I myself used in Damaged Gods' Junky For The Bloodshed music video) it is a forensic evisceration of Tony Blair and his ridiculously shady career. 

George Galloway's enmity towards his subject is barely veiled. It is clear that he has come to bury Tony Blair, not to praise him and the astute contributors (Will Self, Stephen Fry, Peter Oborne, Seumas Milne, David Davis, Clare Short, Ken Livingstone and Noam Chomsky) are more than happy to grab the shovel and eagerly heap on the dirt. Spoiler alert: you won't find any balance in this documentary. There isn't a single person who speaks up on his behalf, although Lauren Booth acknowledge Our Tone's charm and tells George even he would be seduced. George ponders this for the very briefest of moments, "Perhaps..." before concluding, "But then I'd have to arrest him." 

The film analyses Tony’s political career, his spell as Prime Minister, the decision to hook up with George Dubya in invading Iraq, his subsequent role as the Middle-East peace envoy and the creation of Tony Blair Inc. to handle his public appearances and consultancy fees for advising despots and dictators on the softening of their public image. The reputational damage to the role of politician is irrevocable. We don't trust them any longer precisely because of the lies of Tony Blair and his attack dog, Alistair Campbell.

In the twin shadows of the Chilcot Report (Hey! Whatever happened to that?) and the Labour Leadership race the film is chillingly apposite. It's a powerful work which leaves you both sad and angry: sad at the needless waste of life and angry that the sham of "Western Democracy" means that 2 million people marching through the streets of London in opposition to an illegal war makes absolutely no difference to those who make our decisions for us.

Blair has created a worrying blueprint for future prime ministers: hand out favours to vested interests when in office to quangos, foreign governments, dictators, arms dealers, etc., and then when you retire, they pay you lucrative sums for speeches and consultancy work.

After the film I waited to see my name in a tiny font with 4,999 other Kickstarters as part of the credits. The screen faded to black and George asked us all to imagine for a moment a million names for those Iraqis who died at our behest. I felt my stomach lurch. Big George took a stack of questions from the audience until we were asked to vacate the theatre for the evening showing of Star Trek Beyond. I posed for a selfie with The Cat In The Hat and then made my way home. Still numb from what I'd seen.    

If Mr. Conterio doesn't understand that over a million dead (there was a deliberate strategy NOT to count the dead as a means to sustain popular support for continued action in Iraq), the Middle-East region in flames and the world's security destabilised is a horror story then I would suggest he is a tad too removed from reality and I feel genuinely sorry for him. 

It's easily the best film I've seen this year and it's nauseating to watch the Blair fans reviewing this documentary as they exercise their gag reflex on the rigidity of Tony's three election wins whilst completely ignoring the toxicity of his legacy. Outside of the middle-class luvvie bubble Tony is so despised that he had to cancel a tour to promote his memoirs after he was pelted with eggs and shoes at his first public signing in Dublin.

People abhor Blair for more than just Iraq. They detest him for maintaining the commodification of public services via PFI. They are angry at the betrayal of Labour values in the pursuit of power. 

This documentary has topped both the iTunes and Amazon charts and has just received its Irish Premier. I'm aware that George Galloway's politics aren't for everyone, but, as Withnail says, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. It may well be frustrating to some, or indeed most, but on Tony Blair Gorgeous George is dead on. Pun intended.

What's Gangsta?

I wrote a piece for The Tribune entitled 'Racist Cunts'. Don't worry, it was amended before Miranda Somebodyorother from Sidcup, Kent could choke on her yoghurt and raisin snack bar. The thrust of the piece was the parallel between the 'gun crime crisis' and the 'crisis' surrounding asylum and immigration in Britain, especially because the asylum issue is still thematically linked to a legacy of hostility towards immigration, anxieties regarding law and order and social stability. Debates on themes such as belonging and nationality, ethnicity and xenophobia specifically target immigrants and refugees reinforcing the idea that the new societal danger should be associated with a newly arrived section of the population.

Specifically the spurious connection, rubber-stamped by a compliant media, between immigration and crime have combined to construct young black British males as a threat to an ordered UK society. The ideological equating of 'gun culture' as an aspect of 'black culture' and the conjoining of immigration to rising crime rates in political discourse have set the conditions for a 'moral panic' to emerge. The reaction to the 'gun culture crisis' is excessively generalised, effectively criminalizing all young black males and conveniently compartmentalising the ownership of this societal problem to a single community.

All of which allows the Metropolitan Police to run the ad above and Rod Liddle - a man in desperate need of a hairdresser, a personal trainer and a jolly good reaming from a rusty chainsaw - to state that "the overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community."

In Liverpool, over the past three years or so, there have been dozens of incidents of what could be described as ‘white on white’ crime. All of the gang members are white, working class youths. Teenagers are routinely shot and injured as the drug and gang wars have escalated and spilled onto the streets often claiming the lives of innocent bystanders. The race of the teenagers involved is never mentioned in the Liverpool shootings and these tragedies are always reported in the context of a dysfunctional society, whereas similar incidents involving black perpetrators in London always make reference to a fundamental deficiency in their culture. And rap music.

I've never understood why hip hop is so routinely lambasted. It's essentially a 'Bond' movie with beats and choruses in which the lead, gets the girl and the money. What's not to like? Rap was just 'pop music' to me until I discovered Public Enemy. I'm not sure now if they helped form my world view or whether they merely reinforced it. Whatever, they are the most important band on the face of the planet: forthright and insightful political opinion set to music which was, and remains, genuinely innovative. E-mails I've received from Chuck D saying he digs my band or that we could do something together are... Are... Well, let's face it, they're fucking awesome!

P.E. were so staggeringly inventive that they arguably gave birth to 'gangsta rap'. As the Bomb Squad they produced Ice Cube's debut album and helped develop him from a novelty act as one fifth of the N.W.A. freak show into a serious, politicised and challenging artist, legitimising him with his definitive 'Amerikkka's Most Wanted' opus. Major labels opened the floodgates for the imitators who followed eschewing Cube's critical social commentary, or 'Street Knowledge', in favour of mainstream acceptance through party anthems (Snoop Dogg, anyone?). If you ever want an irrefutable chronicle of Black American life pick up an Ice Cube disc.

I once went to one of his rare UK concerts in Bradford. The security was ridiculous: alsatians straining at the leash, tooled up private security officers, metal detectors, body searches, it all seemed a tad extreme for a gig, but the promoters were merely reacting to the hysteria whipped up by the tabloids. Inside the venue, in stark contrast, the atmosphere was one of easy bonhomie and excited anticipation: we were going to see a legend 'bring it'. And 'bring it' he did with his crip-walking hypeman Dub C. The highlight arrived about three quarters of the way through the concert when Mr Cube paused proceedings to introduce his baby son, carried by a babysitter, dummy still in his mouth.

"This is Lil Ice," announced the Cubed one, "And he's gonna be rocking all y'all's ass in a few years time." As one, the audience paused, melted and emitted a gentle 'Ahhhhh' and then gave a cheer which was the sonic equivalent of one hundred Jean Claude Jacquetti 5000 Hairdryers set to Level 5. It was a fantastic night.

The review of the gig in the inkies the following week described a sequence of events so different I had to check my ticket stub to make sure I was at the same show. First of all, the acclaimed music journalist alleged that there was a preponderance of guns inside the venue. Secondly, he claimed to have witnessed several stand-offs and that he was genuinely scared for his life. Finally, he claimed that the biggest cheer of the night was reserved for the song 'A Bitch Iz A Bitch'. All utter, u.t.t.e.r. bollocks, of course, and that particular song was never performed, but, hey, why let facts get in the way of reinforcing a stereotype?

Another reason to love Rap is the slang: it's always fun to throw a random 'izzle' into dinner party conversation and, whilst it may not be a word that I'd ever use myself (safe in the knowledge that my Mother would give me a damned good cuff around the ear), I've been reassured by the many references to 'hoes' this week in mainstream media as they examine John Terry's extra marital indiscretions. 'Bros before hoes' came the cry from The Guardian and other news outlets as they splashed their indignation across the front pages completely ignoring the story of the week: Cherie Blair clearing a fella who broke another man's jaw in a particularly violent example of what is being referred to as 'queue rage'. The reasons for the suspended sentence? 1. The chap who committed the assault was a religious man. 2. Er... 3. That's pretty much it really...

Mrs Blair, like her husband a devout Roman Catholic, meted out a two-year suspended sentence to the man rather than a six-month jail term. She told him:

"I am going to suspend this sentence for the period of two years based on the fact you are a religious person and have not been in trouble before. You caused a mild fracture to the jaw of a member of the public standing in a queue at Lloyds Bank. You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour."

A 'mild' fracture? Well, that's all right then. Secular groups have been up in arms, but they miss the point entirely. This was merely Cherie's very public Valentine's gift to Tony. He's been under fire after his shameless performance at the Chilcot Inquiry and may even be called back to explain the glaring inconsistencies in his account of events. He needed reassurance that, right or wrong, a man guided by his God would be vindicated in the end and so in steps Cherie with perhaps the strangest judgement of all time (an official objection has been made to the Judicial Complaints Office which handles complaints against members of the judiciary). After all, it's only the mild destruction of an entire country AND he's got another one ongoing and a third pending. Somewhere in the wide, dark night, after an obscenely lucrative speaking engagement, Tony is banging Cherie doggy style whilst she spits filthy encouragement: "Ooooh! You're a religious man, Tony! You know this is unacceptable, don't you, you naughty boy?"

If I may quote Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis:

"Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."

Government creates the frame for society, not millionaire footballers, or rappers, or the newly arrived into a country. Anyone remember 'Tough on crime. Tough on the causes of crime'? Whilst the former may well have been observed, I would suggest the latter, represented by unemployment, social deprivation and educational underachievement has gone entirely unaddressed.

Shyne was a rapper signed to Bad Boy Entertainment who was earmarked to follow in Biggie's shoes. He was hanging out with J-Lo and P Diddy that fateful night when it all kicked off. He's in prison now for carrying a concealed weapon, but at the time of his arrest had a 'club banga' entitled 'That's Gangsta', in which he defined the term as follows:

"A hundred carats in the watch (THAT'S GANGSTA)

Gettin head in the parkin lot (THAT'S GANGSTA)
Menage red labels (THAT'S GANGSTA)
Honies with diamonds up in their navel (THAT'S GANGSTA)"

Poor, deluded fella. Being the Middle East Peace Envoy on behalf of the US, UN, EU and Russia when you've brought little but death and annihilation to the area, and at the same time pocketing £1,000,000 a year from a UAE investment fund currently negotiating a portion of the profits from the exploitation of Iraqi oil reserves? That's gangsta.

Biatch!