If Mr Blair deserves a freedom medal for invading Iraq (and banning me from smoking) then satire IS dead



When Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, soon after masterminding the U.S. bombing of Cambodia, the brilliant American satirist songster Tom Lehrer announced there was no further point in his job.

'It was at that moment that satire died,' he declared. 'There was nothing more to say after that.'

Other comedians refused to give up, however, struggling on manfully with their attempts to extract dark humour from a real world that increasingly defied parody.

Coveted: The National Constitution Centre of the U.S. awarded its annual Liberty Medal to Tony Blair for 'steadfast commitment to conflict resolution'

But surely we must now agree that if there was any breath left in satire's frail old lungs after Kissinger's peace prize, it was finally snuffed out yesterday when the National Constitution Center of the United States awarded its coveted annual Liberty Medal to Tony Blair for his 'steadfast commitment to conflict resolution'.

With exquisite timing, the centre chose to add our former Prime Minister to its roll of honour - which includes Nelson Mandela and the scientists who cracked the DNA code - on the day after the declassification of the official advice he received on the legality of invading Iraq.

The documents show that less than two months before the 2003 invasion, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith wrote to him about the relevant UN Security Council resolution, saying: 'I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of resolution 1441 is that it does not authorise the use of military force without a further determination by the Security Council.'

Mr Blair underlined the bit about not authorising action, and wrote in the margin: 'I just don't understand this.'

Perhaps I can assist him there. Unless I'm missing something, I reckon that when Lord Goldsmith said the existing Security Council resolution did not authorise military action, what he meant was that the existing Security Council resolution did not authorise military action.

But, of course, Mr Blair understood perfectly well that his government's chief law officer was telling him it would be illegal to invade Iraq without a new UN resolution.

What he meant when he wrote 'I just don't understand this' was 'I just don't agree with this' - or, more specifically: 'I just don't understand how anyone could disagree with a wonderful fellow like me.'

But then, Mr Blair never did get the hang of this liberty lark. Throughout his time in office, he never quite grasped that freedom is inextricably tied up with the rule of law.

Still less did he understand how it depends on subtle constitutional safeguards, including the office of Attorney General, that have evolved over the centuries to keep egomaniacal prime ministers in check.

So instead of adapting his conduct according to his advice, and calling off the invasion, he came up with a typically Blairite solution: he simply sent his Attorney General away to think again - until, to his eternal shame, Lord Goldsmith returned with the advice his boss had wanted in the first place.

Suddenly, and mysteriously, he pronounced it legally permissible for Mr Blair to indulge his taste for warmongering and sucking up to the Americans - with results that the parents, widows and orphans of British servicemen and countless Iraqi civilians will mourn for the rest of their lives.

How will the maimed and bereaved of that unjust and unnecessary war react when they see Mr Blair this September, with his toothy grin and pious platitudes, accepting his Liberty Medal (and his cheque for $100,000) from Bill Clinton in Philadelphia?

But it's not only his Iraq adventure that makes the former Prime Minister so spectacularly unfit to receive an award for 'leadership in the pursuit of freedom'.

Indeed, I can't think of a single politician in our modern peacetime history who did as much as Mr Blair to erode our traditional liberties, chipping away at their cornerstones and vandalising every constitutional obstacle that stood in his way.

Take the independence of the Civil Service - since Victorian times, one of the firmest guarantors of our freedom and the most reliable check on the lies of ministers.

One of Mr Blair's first acts in office was to dispatch an army of partisan 'political advisers' into every Whitehall department, with the job of twisting facts and figures to suit the Government's purposes.

As any tinpot dictator will tell you, the first step towards crushing freedom has always been to establish control over official information.

Or take Cabinet government - a system that evolved to prevent any individual from exercising excessive influence over the affairs of state.

Mr Blair effectively did away with it, preferring to discuss the decisions that really mattered with only a handful of unelected cronies, such as his press secretary Alastair Campbell, from the comfort of his Downing Street sofa.

On the most important decisions, his Cabinet colleagues were kept completely in the dark, while on others they were treated as mere rubber stamps.

Or Parliament. What other prime minister has treated Lords and Commons with such contempt, bypassing them wherever possible and spinning most of his proposals to the media before deigning to announce them in the Palace of Westminster?

(Come to think of it, here I may be speaking too soon. For isn't it remarkable how much everyone seems to know about the new Coalition's decisions, including most of the details of George Osborne's Budget and Theresa May's cap on immigration, before they were mentioned in the House?)

More insidious still was Mr Blair's beloved Human Rights Act, which has turned judges into lawmakers, beyond democratic control.

The stream of perverse decisions from the Bench - setting the rights of foreign rapists and would-be terrorists above those of their victims - has become so exasperating that this week Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger launched an eloquent appeal to pay proper heed to the time-honoured and commonsense English way of administering justice.

But I'm afraid he's whistling in the wind. For until we repeal the HRA - which, let's face it, will mean withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights - our courts will continue to fall ever more deeply under Strasbourg's sway, with the all-too enthusiastic acquiescence of most of the Bench.

Meanwhile, as we all know, Nick Clegg is so gung-ho about the HRA - and David Cameron so faint-hearted about repealing it - that nothing effective will be done for at least five years, and probably decades to come.

It's the same with the European Union, that monstrous affront to our freedom to make our own laws. It was Mr Blair, closely followed by Gordon Brown, who betrayed Labour's promise of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, thereby condemning us to ever-tighter control from Brussels.

As for the rest of Mr Blair's record in office, he was the man who banned hunting and sought to allow British citizens to be locked up for 90 days without trial.

He was the champion of ID cards and the ContactPoint database, which holds information on all our children.

His government introduced section 44 of the Terrorism Act, under which 5,000 people a week are being stopped and searched, with not a single terrorist caught.

Oh, and he introduced the blanket ban on smoking in public places - for addicts like me, the most oppressive single piece of legislation passed by any government in my lifetime. (I note that Mr Clegg is inviting suggestions from the public for his Great Repeal Bill. Will he lift the smoking ban, please, if we sinners promise not to smoke in the presence of people who don't like it? Pigs might fly.)

And the U.S. National Constitutional Center really thinks Mr Blair worthy of its Liberty Medal? Satire, R.I.P.