Monday 3 December 2007

Blair and the Bottler: just how poisonous was it?

There is a genuinely eye-opening piece by Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer about Donorgate. What is remarkable is less Rawnsley's take on what it all means for the Bottler today so much as his account of a genuinely vicious row between Blair and the Bottler before the cash-for-honours scandal blew up in which, in effect, the 'brutally menacing' Bottler threatened to Blair: 'I'll get you over the peerages'.

It was shortly after this that Jack Dromey, husband of Brownite Harriet Harman, blew the gaff on cash-for-honours, claiming that as party treasurer he had deliberately been kept out of the loop.

If true, this is astounding, evidence not just that the Blair-Bottler relationship was worse than surely almost anyone suspected – and these the two senior figures in the government! – but of the plain, petty, low nastiness of the Bottler, consumed with loathing and frustrated ambition.

And this man talks of his 'moral compass'?

2 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

For sure, let'd not forget that the CPS decided not to press charges within a couple of days of Blair standing down (or was it the Sedgefield by-election? One or t'other).

That's exactly how The Bottler managed to get rid of Bliar.

The Creator said...

It is astonishing.

But, for the Bottler, now very much hoist by his own petard – assuming of course the police and CPS can't be bought off. We all know that Ian Blair owes the Bottler big time. But that won't help in Scotland where wee Wendy looks in huge trouble, trouble that all the graft in the world may be unable to avert now.

But is the small-minded nastiness of the so-called son of the manse that gets me.