No, anything but that

According to reports on EU Observer and in the Telegraph, Sarkozy is preparing to endorse Tony Blair as the first non-rotating President of Europe. Given that the wrangling for this and the position of Foreign Minister (a job we believe Sarko would like to go to Bernard Kouchner currently France's Foreign Minister) will be taking place during the French Presidency in the second half of this year this would be a significant endorsement. As the article puts it,

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair will attend a conference of French president Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right party UMP on Saturday (12 January), in what is said to be his first intervention for a party other than his own.

The move is fuelling speculation that Mr Blair, who belongs to the UK's center-left Labour party, is in the running for EU president – a new high-profile job that can be held for up to five years starting in 2009.

And it makes me feel all cold inside. The thought of Blair taking the European Union's imperial purple given the way in which he presented the Reform Treaty/Constitution as a fait accompli to Brown as his last significant act as Prime Minister abhorrent.

The man is sly, slick, disingenuous and has contempt for the people. Perfect qualifications for the job, I suppose.
(Picture from Number 10 website)

Blair lies about Europe (again)

This is of course one of the key precepts of political PR. The truth may be out there, but if you repeat a falsehood enough times people just begin to believe it.

Blair has gone on record that he wants to see a reduced Constitution, mainly to avoid having to ask the British people what they think. In this he is supporting the lead runner in the French Elections, Sarkozy.

However the reporting of this statement has brought out one of those convenient fictions so beloved of the supporters of 'The Project'.
The fib in question is this,
"there are the 18 countries that have already ratified the rejected document".

Or as the PM put it,

"I think the important thing is that if we want to get this resolved, then we have to understand that even though there are 18 of the countries that have ratified the constitutional treaty, there are other countries that really will have a difficulty with a constitutional treaty rather than a treaty, say, in the tradition of the treaty that we negotiated in Amsterdam some 10 years ago".

That is a LIE, and he knows it, 16 have.

Of course the key country to have failed to have done so is Germany. As the BBC put it,

"The German parliament voted to ratify the constitution in May 2005, but the bill has yet to be signed by President Horst Koehler, pending the outcome of a case being heard in the constitutional court".

But Slovakia is in the same position.

Fabricator, Fabulist, Falsifier, Fibber, Perjurer, Teller of Whoppers, Dishonest, Disembling, Bearer of False Witness, Weaver of Tales, Porkie Practitioner, and so on...