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By Stephen Glover

PUBLISHED: 18:21 EST, 28 May 2012 | UPDATED: 18:21 EST, 28 May 2012

A stranger to our shores watching Tony Blair at the Leveson Inquiry yesterday would have got the impression of a reasonable and decent man who had unaccountably been abused and mistreated by a his word feral Press.

If I had not lived through the Blair years, and seen the way in which newspapers were manipulated and sometimes lied to by his formidable Press machine, I might have been persuaded by this suave and confident performance.

Much as I admire Lord Justice Leveson and the sardonic Robert Jay, QC, who asks most of the questions, I am afraid that either as a result of ignorance or excessive indulgence, their interrogation of the former prime minister was terribly lame. He was not put on the spot over many issues where he certainly has a case to answer.

Suave: Tony Blair was a confident witness at the Leveson Inquiry, and unlike other witnesses received very soft interrogation

For example, he was not examined as to why he and his turbulent spin doctor Alastair Campbell who has inexplicably been treated with the softest of kid gloves by this inquiry aided and abetted the bid for the Daily Express by the pornographer Richard Desmond in 2000. At that time, the Express was a New Labour-supporting paper, and Mr Blair believed Mr Desmonds assurances hed keep it so.

No questions were put about why he had permitted Mr Campbell to oversee the crucial September 2002 dossier about Iraq, which convinced many people that Saddam Hussein constituted a danger to this country. Equally, he was not required to justify his Press Secretarys fraudulent second dossier partly based unattributably on a long-out-of-date university doctoral thesis published in February 2003.

He was not asked why, in an unprecedented move, he had allowed his spin doctor to give orders to senior civil servants, and was not made to explain why Mr Campbell had connived in the politicisation of the civil service by installing Labour placemen as departmental press officers answerable to him.

See the article here:
Kid gloves and the damning questions Tony Blair wasn¿t asked at the Leveson Inquiry

28 May 2012 Last updated at 07:50 ET

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Tony Blair: 'Nothing wrong' about ties to press

A close interaction between politicians and the press is inevitable, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has told the Leveson Inquiry.

Mr Blair told the inquiry that at its best British journalism was the best in the world.

But he said the use of newspapers as instruments of political power created a relationship that was "unhealthy".

At one point a protester had to be ejected after getting into the court and calling Mr Blair a "war criminal".

Proceedings were interrupted for around 20 seconds before the man was escorted away.

Lord Justice Leveson apologised to Mr Blair and questioned how the man was able to enter the court through what should have been a secure corridor. An investigation was immediately ordered.

Mr Blair said on the record that there was no truth in the allegation, made by the protester, that he had a paid relationship with JP Morgan.

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Press links inevitable - Blair

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"Tea" (a social word from the 17th century) is one of the words David Crystal examines in his book The Story of English In 100 Words.

"Tea" (a social word from the 17th century) is one of the words David Crystal examines in his book The Story of English In 100 Words.

This interview was originally broadcast on April 2, 2012.

Linguist David Crystal describes English as a "vacuum cleaner of a language." Speakers merrily swipe some words from other languages, adopt others because they're cool or sound classy, and simply make up other terms.

In his new book, he tells The Story of English in 100 Words, using a collection of words classic ones like "tea" and new words like "app" that explain how the the English language has evolved.

Crystal thinks every word has a story to tell, even the ones as commonplace as "and."

"Poor little words like 'and,' and 'the,' and 'of' ... they don't get any press at all," Crystal tells NPR's Neal Conan. "And this is a great shame, because without them, we have no syntax. We have no grammar. The whole language falls apart."

Crystal discusses the idiosyncrasies of the English language and some of his favorite words that made the list.

On the English language as a vacuum cleaner

Continue reading here:
From 'App' To 'Tea': English Examined In '100 Words'

Fridays news that Mitt Romney, presumptive presidential Republican nominee, will be making a campaign stop in Craig and Moffat County was surprising, to say the least. Politics aside, a visit of such magnitude is historical for our small community, and puts us squarely in the national spotlight for a moment, however brief it may be.

Prepare to be introduced to the world, Craig and Moffat County.

Thats essentially what our community was told Friday afternoon when a spokeswoman with the Mitt Romney campaign confirmed to the Craig Daily Press the former Massachusetts governor and likely Republican presidential nominee would indeed make a campaign stop in our community next week.

Word spread quickly around town of the news, and excitement built in some circles.

I love him, said Sari Cobb, owner of Cornerstone Realty, a business a Peyton Manning spiral away from where Romney will appear Tuesday morning at Alice Pleasant Park. I am thrilled with his ethics. I like basically everything he stands on.

A business near Cornerstone, Pam Design Interiors, even graced its front window with a sign welcoming Romney on Friday.

This, it should be noted, is just a small sampling of the anticipation thats likely to build over the next few days about the visit to a community as tried and true Republican as they come.

But, political affiliations aside, there are plenty of other reasons to be excited about the visit.

Its rare a community our size, in a location as remote as ours, gets the attention of such a political heavyweight.

While many polls indicate he trails President Barack Obama, its not outside the realm of possibility that well be hosting the next leader of the free world live and in person Tuesday.

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Editorial: History in the making

As the potential grows for a euro-quake that could well send a financial tidal wave racing toward America, and the U.S. heads toward a "fiscal cliff" of its own, created by Congress, you'd think political leaders here would be uniting urgently to preserve the fragile economic recovery taking place.

But that of course would assume rational politics, grounded in reality, and a determination to protect the nation from another financial nightmare.

And that is just about the opposite of how Washington works these days. Which is why the public holds Congress in about the same regard as ambulance-chasing shysters.

Consider the so-called fiscal cliff.

Last summer, Tea Party Republicans made it clear and it turned out they were serious that they would force the nation into default, with all the disastrous consequences that would entail, rather than raise the national debt limit to accommodate more borrowing to pay for government programs mandated by Congress itself. (Raising the limit was routine in the past.)

As the brinkmanship tore away at the economy, both parties eventually agreed to strike a committee to examine how the colossal deficit can be reduced.

But they also built in a sort of dead-man's switch: automatic, across-the-board spending cuts would be triggered at the end of this year if committee members could not agree on what to do.

Naturally, they could not agree.

The Democrats were willing to compromise, and accept Republican-sponsored spending cuts if tax increases on the wealthiest Americans were also implemented.

Republicans insisted on spending cuts as the entire solution. They refused to even consider forcing the rich to pay more.

See the rest here:
Neil Macdonald: How compromise became a dirty word in Washington