Blast from the Past

There are, of course, all sorts of reasons for objecting to the Reverend Blair's elevation to the Most Servile Confabulation of the Stocking-Top, and of course some sorts of reasons are more legitimate and understandable than others. For many it's a matter of misguided principle, relating to their sensitivities over the Iraq adventure and pathological blindness to the wonders of Sure Start. Others are just doing it to annoy the more moderate and sensible variety of Guardian columnist. Still others have more personal reasons, and one such may be the elder statesman and area of outstanding natural fatuity Butcher Hoon, the stages of whose salubrious career have been noted by your correspondent on several occasions past.

It is not impossible that Hoon's day may have dawned anew, for he is evidently a most foresighted politician. As the Reverend Sir Tony's Secretary for Wog-Bombing, Hoon anticipated present-day Brexiteer statesmanship by proclaiming that, given a few years to think it over, the mothers of dead Iraqi children would probably thank us for their liberation. Demoted to the post of chief whip (School Bully, in modern English), Hoon again headed the downward curve by retiring from politics and setting up a "consultancy" for the profitable use of his ministerial contacts, only to be caught out in a sting operation by the now-to-be-dismantled Channel Four. Now Hoon has reacted to the Reverend Sir Tony's ascent by printing extracts from his memoirs in the Rothermere Daily Stürmer, where he raises the possibility that the Iraq crusade may (gasp!) have been considered illegal. The relevant advice was "not easy to read," perhaps because it included the three-syllable word illegal, and Hoon claims he was ordered to burn it but negotiated the matter down to indefinite detention in a ministerial safe. So profound a matter of principle did it prove, that Hoon remained in his wog-bombing post until unceremoniously given the heave-ho a couple of years later. And yet still nobody has knighted him.