For Brutus was an honourable man… and so is Tony Blair

It has taken me most of my life to come to the conclusion that Adolf Hitler was simply a man trying his best to improve the world. He had great plans to re-build Berlin; he called himself, entirely reasonably, a National Socialist; he aimed to create better buildings, better roads, better cars for “the people”; he passed laws to stop cruelty to animals; and he wanted to breed and build better human beings. In his own mind, he was doing good. Was he evil? Not in his own mind.

It is one small step from deciding, for whatever personal reasons, that all red-haired men are sub-human to deciding they should be wiped out as a way of improving the human gene pool. The Chinese government sent tanks over the students in Tienanmen Square for the greater good of future generations. In their own minds. Within my lifetime – I was in my early teens – the USA – the flag-bearer for Western democracy – discriminated against blacks in the Southern states and throughout the States – because they were seen as second-class human beings.

Like Hitler, the people who did this were not in their own minds evil men. They believed that their belief systems were valid. They wanted a better world. The road to hell can be paved with the good intentions of men who believe they are in the right.

And so we come to Tony Blair.

He had great plans to re-build Britain; he called himself a nationally-minded “new” Socialist; he aimed to create better buildings, better roads, better lives for “the people”. Was he evil? Is he evil?

Did he really wage war against Iraq thinking they were NOT actively developing and were not perhaps close to creating nuclear weapons? Bollocks. Of course he believed it. It was beyond belief at the time that Saddam was playing a game of bluff with an empty hand.

Was Dr David Kelly murdered by shadowy operatives of the Blair State because he was an embarrassment to the government? Bollocks. The risk of a murder being uncovered was too high to risk, given the number of people who would have had to be in the know in the chain of events.

Claiming Dr David Kelly was murdered is letting Blair off the hook.

Which is worse?

That Blair or his System had Kelly killed?

Or that a Blair government based for over a decade on spin, manipulation, lies and bullying hounded a decent man to the point where he committed suicide?

I have always gone for the cock-up theory of history rather than conspiracy theories. And for simpler explanations over more complex ones.

If Dr David Kelly was killed, it was an extraordinarily incompetent, pointless and ineffective thing to do.

If he was psychologically pressured, harassed and hounded by the Blair government, then Blair truly is an evil man. Like Hitler, his road to evil must have seemed to him to have had the best interests of future generations in mind. The result, though, is a truly, madly, deeply evil man.