SIMON EMMETT . net

I had originally intended to write a quick review of a book that I had just finished reading. But when I got near the end it raised a question that is very topical at the moment. Confused? I’ll explain.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been reading Andrew Marr’s “A History Of Modern Britain”. I had previously seen the BBC TV series of the book but was well aware of that large swathes had been editted out, or the series would have gone on for a lot longer than six episodes. The book gives a fairly thorough look a Britain from VE-day to the End of Tony Blair, and surprisingly (knowing how Marr can be on his TV show) is written in a very balanced way. Although when it came to the Brown/Blair splits, you can see which side he favours when you read between the lines.

However, whilst finishing off one the last chapters yesterday I found a passage that as I said at the beginning of this post, is quite topical. In a chapter called “into the furnace”, Marr as written about the negotiations between Blair and Bush in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, and the certain promises that were made. At the Chilcott inquiry Tony Blair denied that he had promised to invade Iraq alongside the Americans. The passage from the book reads:

“On 7 September 2002 at Camp David Blair finally got Bush’s promise to go via the UN, and Bush got Blair’s promise that Britain would fight alongside America in Iraq if that route failed.”

- (p. 563, A History of Modern Britain, Andrew Marr)

So despite Blair’s denial that there was ever a promise, is seems clear that there was.

Anyway, a thoroughly good book and well recommended.