sides

👏 This is brilliant from Zia Yusuf! He put that smug, lecturing, hypocritical war criminal firmly in his place. On Question Time, Alastair Campbell had the front to accuse others of lying and refusing to take accountability. Zia went straight for him: “Alastair Campbell is calling other people liars, saying they don’t apologise and take accountability. As far as I remember Alastair, you were the person who presented a dossier to the British people claiming Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes. We now know there were no WMDs of any sort.” “You deceived the British public because you and your old boss Tony Blair wanted to go to war with Iraq, and as a direct result of your deception Alastair, almost 180 British troops are dead, 600,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. You have told some of the most consequential lies in the history of this country.” He finished him off: “There are people watching this who would disagree with you when you described yourself as a ‘national treasure’ recently. They would more aptly describe you as a WAR CRIMINAL! If there were any justice in this country, frankly you and your old boss Tony would be on trial!” I didn’t know he’d described himself as a national treasure. Truly delusional. Ruthless and accurate from Zia. You could see Campbell itching to interrupt, absolutely fuming, his old spin-doctor rage barely contained. But the “reformed” version with the carefully managed mental health narrative had to sit there and take it. That must have been agony for him. His response was as weak as expected. He pointed to inquiries that found no deliberate lies or “sexing up”. Then he tried to equate the economic impact of Brexit with the catastrophic, ongoing consequences of the Iraq War. The two are not remotely comparable.