Justin McKeating on the "Brown Doctrine"

Justin isn’t impressed by Gordon Brown’s attempt to preempt his appearance at the Chilcot inquiry:

And isn’t it fortunate that Gordon now reveals he didn’t regard Saddam an imminent threat, just as that argument is shown (once again) to be a stinking pile of mendacious horseshit. If only Brown had had a quiet word in Alastair Campbell’s ear back in 2002, all of this unpleasantness might have been avoided. Brown seems to have had no consideration of Iraqi human rights (as Blair later tried to twist it) and admits Saddam could have stayed in power if only he’d come clean about the weapons he didn’t have.

If anything, Brown’s case for cluster-bombing children is even weaker than Blair’s. At least Blair tried to convince us of some threat that needed countering. Brown makes the deaths of – at the very least – 100,000 people, the destruction of a country, and the debasement of UK foreign policy sound like an early bed time for disobedience. I have children who have a ‘persistent disregard’ for what they’re told. God help them if I take up the Brown Doctrine.

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