The Killing$ of Tony Blair (12A.)
Directed by Sanne van der Bergh, Greg Ward.
Featuring George Galloway, Peter Oborne, Lauren Booth, Seamus Milne, Will Self, Noam Chomsky, Clare Short and Ken Livingstone. 92 mins
This crowd funded documentary presents us with a look at a despicable, self aggrandising, self deluding, hypocritical, traitorous, political opportunist who will suck up to anyone if he feels it is expedient. And that Tony Blair doesn't come out of it too well either.
Like most long serving Prime Ministers of recent times, much of Tony Blair's success was down to being lucky with the poor quality of the opposition he faced. While Thatcher was able to see off Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock, Blair had to face down William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard and David Cameron. His luck hasn't deserted him out of office either; this expose of how he has used the political contacts he made in office to amass enormous wealth and give succour to various dictators since leaving office, is fronted by one of the few political figure against who he might be compared favourably to, Gorgeous George Galloway,* the would be T.E. Lawrence of Bradford and Bethnal Green.
Galloway is our on-screen presenter, normally dressed in black and always wearing a jaunty black fedora to cover up his receding hairline. (He takes it off for a scene in a church.) His commentary is one long I-told-you-so, and no opportunity is missed to mention his involvement in the story – He knew Blair was a wrong'un before anyone else, He was ejected from Labour Party, He addressed the two million people at the Stop The War march and He got arrested. The key moment I guess would be when Galloway speaks witheringly of Blair flying halfway round the world to speak at a Rupert Murdoch organised gathering on the Hayman Islands, and your mind wanders back to another politician flying in to grovel at the feet of a tyrannical monster. All together now - “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability."
Galloway is like a big head in the seat in front of you that keeps moving around distractingly and blocking the screen. Why doesn't he get out of the way and let us see the film? Because this is too big and important a story to be sabotaged by his ego. Fortunately the film is full of people worth listening to and the story they tell, if mostly familiar, is still a staggering indictment our democracy and the New Labour project. The crux of the film is how Blair has gone about enriching himself after retiring from the premiership, mostly by using the contracts he gained as Prime Minister. It's not just the scale of his earnings, but the unseemly way he goes about it. He give advise to Kazak dictators on how to spin a massacre of 60 striking miners in the western media; smooths deals between J.P. Morgan, the bank that employed him as a consultant,** and Gaddafi; he even managed to broker some lucrative deals as a side line to his efforts as Middle East peace envoy. And all the time we are paying for the 8 man security detail that protects him and his property portfolio. Possibly the most striking moment is Blair appearing on This Morning and Philip Schofield making an awkward joke about how he can relax because neither he nor Holly were going to make a citizen's arrest for him being a war criminal.
Now to be honest there isn't anything here that a regular Private Eye reader didn't know already but having it all gathered in one place does give it a real force. We're so inured to the steady drip drip of scandal and sleaze that it doesn't quite register. Sometimes you need to be stopped and made to see just how big a pile of dung has been amassed in the stables. Blair kicking is a popular British pastime because we can all, even those who voted for him more than once, feel vindicated by his fall because We all knew that the Iraq War was a bad idea. Watching this though you won't feel so smug, because we failed to spot everything else, and still don't fully appreciate what a monster we created.
I think we deserve a better film about Blair than this but as Michael Sheen and Peter Morgan seem to have discarded their greatest creation just as his story really became interesting I guess this will have to do. Shooting the messenger is generally held to be bad form, but I'd say that rather depends on the messenger. This film should make you angry, very angry, but every time Galloway face pops up that anger just wilts away into tired cynicism – why bother, they're all as bad as each other – and I already have a full stock of tired cynicism, enough to last me a life time.
* Galloway is worse than Blair, because we did at least have to give power to Blair to find out he was evil; Galloway might not have done as many terrible things as Blair, but that's just down to a lack of oportunities, isn't it?
**When Blair first got the job at a consultant at J.P. Morgan there was a Harry Enfield sketch where he turned up for work at the bank and on his first day his unimpressed colleagues sent him out to get the coffees and do the photocopying. It seemed funny then, laughable now.
.
Directed by Sanne van der Bergh, Greg Ward.
Featuring George Galloway, Peter Oborne, Lauren Booth, Seamus Milne, Will Self, Noam Chomsky, Clare Short and Ken Livingstone. 92 mins
This crowd funded documentary presents us with a look at a despicable, self aggrandising, self deluding, hypocritical, traitorous, political opportunist who will suck up to anyone if he feels it is expedient. And that Tony Blair doesn't come out of it too well either.
Like most long serving Prime Ministers of recent times, much of Tony Blair's success was down to being lucky with the poor quality of the opposition he faced. While Thatcher was able to see off Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock, Blair had to face down William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard and David Cameron. His luck hasn't deserted him out of office either; this expose of how he has used the political contacts he made in office to amass enormous wealth and give succour to various dictators since leaving office, is fronted by one of the few political figure against who he might be compared favourably to, Gorgeous George Galloway,* the would be T.E. Lawrence of Bradford and Bethnal Green.
Galloway is our on-screen presenter, normally dressed in black and always wearing a jaunty black fedora to cover up his receding hairline. (He takes it off for a scene in a church.) His commentary is one long I-told-you-so, and no opportunity is missed to mention his involvement in the story – He knew Blair was a wrong'un before anyone else, He was ejected from Labour Party, He addressed the two million people at the Stop The War march and He got arrested. The key moment I guess would be when Galloway speaks witheringly of Blair flying halfway round the world to speak at a Rupert Murdoch organised gathering on the Hayman Islands, and your mind wanders back to another politician flying in to grovel at the feet of a tyrannical monster. All together now - “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability."
Galloway is like a big head in the seat in front of you that keeps moving around distractingly and blocking the screen. Why doesn't he get out of the way and let us see the film? Because this is too big and important a story to be sabotaged by his ego. Fortunately the film is full of people worth listening to and the story they tell, if mostly familiar, is still a staggering indictment our democracy and the New Labour project. The crux of the film is how Blair has gone about enriching himself after retiring from the premiership, mostly by using the contracts he gained as Prime Minister. It's not just the scale of his earnings, but the unseemly way he goes about it. He give advise to Kazak dictators on how to spin a massacre of 60 striking miners in the western media; smooths deals between J.P. Morgan, the bank that employed him as a consultant,** and Gaddafi; he even managed to broker some lucrative deals as a side line to his efforts as Middle East peace envoy. And all the time we are paying for the 8 man security detail that protects him and his property portfolio. Possibly the most striking moment is Blair appearing on This Morning and Philip Schofield making an awkward joke about how he can relax because neither he nor Holly were going to make a citizen's arrest for him being a war criminal.
Now to be honest there isn't anything here that a regular Private Eye reader didn't know already but having it all gathered in one place does give it a real force. We're so inured to the steady drip drip of scandal and sleaze that it doesn't quite register. Sometimes you need to be stopped and made to see just how big a pile of dung has been amassed in the stables. Blair kicking is a popular British pastime because we can all, even those who voted for him more than once, feel vindicated by his fall because We all knew that the Iraq War was a bad idea. Watching this though you won't feel so smug, because we failed to spot everything else, and still don't fully appreciate what a monster we created.
I think we deserve a better film about Blair than this but as Michael Sheen and Peter Morgan seem to have discarded their greatest creation just as his story really became interesting I guess this will have to do. Shooting the messenger is generally held to be bad form, but I'd say that rather depends on the messenger. This film should make you angry, very angry, but every time Galloway face pops up that anger just wilts away into tired cynicism – why bother, they're all as bad as each other – and I already have a full stock of tired cynicism, enough to last me a life time.
* Galloway is worse than Blair, because we did at least have to give power to Blair to find out he was evil; Galloway might not have done as many terrible things as Blair, but that's just down to a lack of oportunities, isn't it?
**When Blair first got the job at a consultant at J.P. Morgan there was a Harry Enfield sketch where he turned up for work at the bank and on his first day his unimpressed colleagues sent him out to get the coffees and do the photocopying. It seemed funny then, laughable now.
.
