Placards and protests welcome Blair to Iraq inquiry

Stop the War campaigners today dusted down their grim reaper costumes and picked up their 'witty' B-LIAR placards to welcome the arrival of Tony Blair to the Iraq War Inquiry.

For those interested - or merely unemployed - the whole day's events were broadcast on BBC News with a one-minute delay, to avoid the disclosure of national secrets. Sound exciting? Well not exactly.

The former prime minister arrived through a side entrance early this morning to avoid protestors and take up his seat as the star witness of the inquiry, which has been set-up to identify lessons that can be learned from the Iraq conflict.

For your benefit, I disciplined myself to watch all six hours - yes, six whole bloody hours - of proceedings.

Sitting in front of a five-member panel constituting senior civil servants, academics and lawyers - and with his back to families of servicemen and women killed in the conflict, the day promised to be tense.

However, those expecting a televised Judge Judy-style bashing will have been disappointed with the tone of the proceedings. Demonstrating the statesmanship that swept him to three consecutive election victories, Blair remained relatively unruffled throughout, fixed with the facial expression of a schoolchild being reprimanded by his headmaster for a minor playground discretion.

The inquest was a very English affair. All polite questions, pleases, thanks yous and knowing glances. Blair received more of a grilling last month from that famous in-depth investigative political correspondent Fern Britton, who - on her day off from hosting the drab ITV show All Star Mr and Mrs - managed to get him to admit that he would have still invaded Iraq if Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction.

Despite Blair's absence from politics for the best part of two years, he displayed the primary skill essential for any politician worth his tax-dodging salary - the ability to duck interviewers' questions.

Looking like a man who has spent too much time sun-bathing in the Middle East, rather than solving the region's political crises, Blair defended his decision to go to war, denied placing pressure on the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith to legalise the conflict and downplayed any agreement with US president George Bush at a private meeting in 2002

But this isn't a hatchet job on the former Labour Party leader. He did, throughout the six hours make some valid points, despite his failure to offer any humility or an apology, which drew wide-spread anger inside the inquiry.

"This isn't about a lie or a conspiracy or a deceit or a deception. It's a decision," he said.

"And the decision I had to take was, given Saddam's history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million people whose deaths he had caused, given ten years of breaking UN resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons programmes or is that a risk that it would be irresponsible to take?"

The consequences of his decision are still apparent in Iraqi's blood-soaked marketplaces and the 150,000 grieving mothers and fathers that litter the country - with or without this pointless exercise.

Whether it managed to distract the nation's sofa-stricken population from Murder She Wrote, Loose Women or Cash in the Attic is questionable, but the BBC's decision to broadcast it should be applauded. Politics is an issue that affects us all, so we should take a more active role in it.

"A lie screamed loudly will trump a truth spoken quietly"

For me America is a strange and distant land. For a country so interlinked politically and historically with our own there are many things about the good-ol US of A that I will never understand - American football, thanksgiving, Dog the Bounty Hunter, David Hasselhoff's continuing existence and, most confusingly of all, the popularity of Fox News.

Rupert Murdoch's purveyor of "partisan news" has today been voted the most trustworthy source of information in America by US citizens. In a survey conducted by Public Policy Polling, almost half of respondents said they trusted Fox News, compared to 39 per cent who have confidence in the channel's rival CNN.

However, Fox News is a news channel in name only. Relying on the network as your only source of information is more stupid than thinking Eastenders is a gritty documentary of modern-day London life.

For those who are not aware of Fox News let me educate you. Established by Australian media-mogul Murdoch in 1996 to counter a media that, in his opinion, was dominated by liberals - it has since been accused of bias towards rightwing politicians and causes. Widely described as an extension of the US Republican Party, the rolling news channel has been caught in a succession of controversies, including allegations of distributing propaganda, manipulating photos and executives influencing editorial output.

Fox has removed its coverage so far from objective journalism that it has become a running commentary on news rather than a traditional output for reporting. The two stars of this new type of channel are undoubtedly Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly.

Beck is a manic, doom-prophesying patriot, who - like many Americans - has an almost psychotic fear of socialism. Described by a prominent American journalist as "Satan's mentally-challenged younger brother", Beck is most widely know for his rant earlier this year describing Barack Obama a racist who has a "deep-seated hatred of white people or the white culture". Click here for a montage of his finest moments.

O-Reilly, on the other hand, is even more offensive. The former semi-professional baseball player has hosted The O'Reilly Factor, which is the most watched cable programme in America, since 1996 and has spent the majority of the last decade with his foot permanently in his mouth.

Renowned for his popular catchphrase "Shut up!", O'Reilly is a man who appears to be in a perpetual state of mental constipation, while at the same time suffering from verbal diarrhoea.

Responding to Michelle Obama's comment on her husband's campaign trail early last year that she is finally proud of her country, O'Reilly said: "I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle unless there's evidence that say this is how the woman really feels.

"If that's how she really feels – that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever – then that's legit. We'll track it down."

For more along the same lines, click here

Dean Denham, president of Public Policy Polling, emphasised the implications that the rise of Fox-esque news providers could have on journalism in America

He said: "That people see the network as trustworthy is worrying in terms of the future of reasoned debate in America.

"A lie screamed loudly will trump a truth ¬spoken quietly."

You may be thinking - how does this affect me? Well, Murdoch has already expressed wishes for his UK ventures to become more like Fox. So if in five years time Jim Davidson is calling Gordon Brown a one-eyed, haggis-eating jock whilst anchoring Sky News don't say I didn't warn you.

Titchmarsh is a Turnip

Alan Titchmarsh is many things. TV host, novelist, horticulturist and sex symbol for the nation's toothless Countdown watchers I can just about accept. Last time I checked, however, the Yorkshire-born, ex-Songs of Praise presenter was not an environmental scientist.

Despite this, the Daily Express today decided that Titchmarsh's calls for the public to be given the "whole picture" on climate change is worthy of a half-page item in the news section of its esteemed publication.

Sounding suspiciously like a man who huddles in corners whispering conspiracy theories, the BBC Radio 2 fixture has offered his views on the 'great global warming swindle'.

Referring to the fact that there has been 30 ice ages interspersed with warm periods in the Earth's history, Titchmarsh said: "There is a denial that this has ever happened before, as if we are children who cannot be told the full story.

"These facts are almost swept under the carpet because they are inconvenient truths".

Far from being denied as Titchmarsh claims, the International Panel on Climate Change acknowledged the role that natural events play in global warming in its fourth assessment report in 2007.

However, the study disclosed that the geological record has shown that nature's timetable of climate change is very different from the current warming cycle and that our planet has never warmed at this quick a pace before.

Now, I will admit that I have limited national newspaper editing experience - precisely none actually - but what senior editor in his right mind would define Titchmarsh's vague mutterings about "facts being swept under the carpet" and people being treated like grown-ups as news? Step forward Mr John Ingham - the paper's environment editor.

Ingham has been steadfastly flying against all rational logic and scientific evidence in his current post and would have played a part in the newspaper's outlandishly stupid Snow Chaos: And They Still Claim Its Global Warming story earlier this month.

What's next? Piers Morgan discussing the consequences of sea level rises on the world's biodiversity? Jordan and Peter Andre debating the implications of climate change on future water resources for the Indian sub-continent across competing ITV4 reality shows? Jedward hypothesising about the role that peatlands play in global carbon dioxide emissions in a GMTV special hosted by Lorraine Kelly?

Please stop it Ingham - for all of our sakes.