My guess is either some other form of blackmail - Blair's background is unlikely to be completely squeaky clean, and a few whiffs of weed would be enough to do him seriously political damage - or that Blair got religion in a serious way and actually believes he's in a crusade against Islam.

Or possibly both.

I've seen speculations that the US has a stack of kiddy porn leads on UK pols - which is sort of plausible, but only in a mad conspiracy theory kind of a way. It makes as much sense as any other explanation - which is to say, not much sense at all.

If Bush goes down, Blair would finally be able to tell all - at least subject to the usual threats of a nasty accident. Since an autobiography is inevitable, that would be the obvious place to tell the full story.

But my guess is that whatever the secret is, it's going to stay with Blair until he's dead and buried. And it's likely we'll never know for sure.

So that would be Portugal, then? So, along with everything else, he is ignorant of history - which explains alot.

2. Dyson, Stephen. and Lawrence, Brianna. "Blair's War: Institutional and Individual Determinants of the British Choice in Iraq" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2005-03-05 Online <.PDF>. 2007-05-10
Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper seeks to explain the Blair administration's decision to support the United States in the 2003 Iraq war. The paper develops a framework for the explanation of foreign policy decisions in Britain based upon a model of institutional structure, the resources of key decision makers, and the individual characteristics of the prime minister (Dyson, 2003; 2004; Rhodes, 1990, 1995; Kaarbo, 1998). METHOD: Content analysis of the universe of Tony Blair's responses to foreign policy questions in the House of Commons from 1997-2004 is used to measure his individual characteristics, which are operationalized through Margaret G. Hermann's Leadership Trait Analysis technique (Hermann, 1980, 1983, 1999). The structure of the administration's decision making, and the strategies employed by actors within this structure, are reconstructed through a content analysis of British and international press accounts located through the lexis-nexus search engine. RESULTS: In terms of institutional structure and resources, the paper finds that key members of Blair's cabinet, such as Robin Cook and Clair Short, both opposed the war and utilized resources available to them such as public opposition, the leaking of information and resignation from ministerial posts, in order to seek to frustrate Blair's policy goals. Other actors, such as Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, were personally uneasy about the policy and the prime minister was required to expend significant political capital in order to secure their support. Indeed, had Blair been a less dominant prime minister prior to the Iraq war, it is unlikely that he would have been able to secure the support of his cabinet and of parliament in the endeavor. In terms of individual characteristics of the prime minister, Blair is measured as significantly higher than other modern British Prime Ministers in belief in ability to control events, suggesting a proactive orientation to foreign policy, and significantly lower in conceptual complexity, suggesting a black and white view of the world which accorded well with the Bush administration's framing of the Iraq situation. The findings suggest that explaining the British decision to go to war alongside America requires an understanding of both the institutional structure of British foreign policy making, the resources possessed by key actors within this structure, and the individual characteristics of the Prime Minister.

I find that he has a high belief in his ability to control events, a low conceptual complexity, and a high need for power

and how many politicians does this not fit?

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Treasuries could quite easily issue credit directly under the supervision of a Monetary Authority, with no interest charged, but with a payment into a default fund for the use of a Government Guarantee, and a payment for administration payable to Credit Managers formerly known as Banks.

It's not Rocket Science: but it is the disintermediating logic of the Internet.

To paraphrase John Gilmour's great quote re Censorship:

"The Internet interprets Banks as Damage and routes around them...."

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

Besides housing mortgage interest costs; there isn't any underlying significant inflation and housing costs are decreased by lower inflation rates; not higher rates.

As a social progressive; I am surprised you would be taken in by the central banks stated reasons and not look at the true underlying pressures from the 'elites' which control the banks.

Do you have one?

As pointed out by Lucas below, some studies point out that the poor were doing better thanks to inflation.

(And of course you know my opinion on the current obscure process of inflation measurement)

This ties in with a lot of hints that Blair is really just another off-the-peg authoritarian. Possibly what happened in the early years was that he was nestled within the bosom of Labour and his colleagues were allowed to pursue traditional Labour policy - at least up to a point.

Gradually those with irritating old-fashioned ethical beliefs were forced out, for one reason or another.

Then came Iraq, most of the remaining traditionalists resigned. Blair remained as the sole driver, with no moderating influences, surrounded by a collection of yes-people and authoritarian religious types who share his real views.

It's been a very quiet coup. Labour grassroots have deserted, literally in their millions, and what's left of the old party now is just a twitching corpse stifling an urge to turn up in public in a bishop's hat, and fingering a rosary.

Not only was it very enlightening, it also answered a question of mine. Quite some time ago I picked up a translation (and a good one, with lots of explanatory footnotes) of the Koran, and read quite a bit (a quarter perhaps). Anyway in some parapragh were it is stated that you should respect other people of the book, Jews, Christians and Sabeans were listed as those people. Finally I have the answer to that nagging question "who were the Sabeans?".

And so I find that they question was posed in the wrong tense, but tragically looks like it will be in the right tense soon.

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