10 November, 2003: A new respectability to uninformed opinion

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Excerpt from Tony Blair's Mansion House speech today: (emphasis mine)

What therefore is happening in Iraq? [Cut list of various types of progress, in which Blair repeated his `progress of a sorts' joke about Iraq's 170 new newspapers] Access to the internet is no longer forbidden.

Why would he bother with such a transparent lie? As those who read Salam Pax's web log before the late military unpleasantness will remember, internet access was available -- though censored and monitored -- in Iraq, and had been since 2002. (Naturally, the Americans bombed the ISP.)

Or does nobody in Downing Street bother to fact-check Blair's speeches before he delivers them?


Copyright (c) 2003 Chris Lightfoot; available under a Creative Commons License.