BBC reports defeat
Prime Minister Tony Blair
won an overwhelming parliamentary endorsement last Wednesday for his pro-U.S.
position on Iraq.
By 393 votes to 199, he easily defeated a motion that said the case for
war against Iraq has not yet been proved.
So how did the
"impartial" BBC report it?
Here are the headlines from their website.
(Radio and TV news and commentary had much the same tone.)
“Blair suffers major
revolt on Iraq”
“Tony Blair's position
on Iraq suffered a setback on Wednesday as his government's motion sparked the
biggest rebellion of his premiership.”
“Blair's bloody nose.”
“Tony Blair was braced
for the biggest rebellion of his premiership - and he got it in spades.”
Nick Assinder, the BBC
News Online political correspondent made the following extraordinary assertion
in his article reporting the vote.
“The bottom line is that
the prime minister and his US allies have failed to convince a large section
of the public, the House of Commons and the Labour party that there is enough
evidence against Saddam to warrant war.”
Eh?
The prime minister had just convinced the House of Commons by 393 votes
to 199 that the case had already been made.
He had won over his own party’s MPs by a ratio of two to one.
(Click here for the list of how
MPs voted.)
The real parliamentary support for war is likely to be much greater.
Everyone knows that most of the MPs who voted against him will support a
war eventually.
Even Tony Blair himself insists that a final decision has not yet been
made and that Parliament will have another chance to vote on the matter.
Sure, It’s difficult to
know what the public really think.
There has been a peace march, and some opinion polls suggest that a
majority oppose a war, but there’s no serious doubt about the legitimacy of Mr.
Blair’s government.
Parliamentary democracy
means entrusting our elected MPs to elect a prime minister who appoints a
government. Tony
Blair could be booted out of office today.
All it requires is for another MP to propose a vote of no confidence and
win it, and he’d be gone.
Although there are plenty of ambitious MPs, none of them could get near
it.
Despite
all the hot air from the Labour left, Tony Blair retains the overwhelming
support of the House of Commons in general, and for his conduct of this war, in
particular. Why
doesn’t the BBC report that?
Jim Thornton 1 March 2003
