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Hodge: PM’s ‘big Iraq mistake’
GOVERNMENT minister Margaret Hodge – former leader of Islington Council – broke cover on Friday and denounced the Iraq war as Tony Blair’s “big mistake in foreign affairs”.
She is the first close colleague of the Prime Minister to upbraid his policies in public. Critical cabinet members have only leaked their views anonymously through the parliamentary lobby.
Ms Hodge made her remarks at a private dinner for members of Islington’s Fabian Society at the London Resource Centre in Holloway Road.
She said she had had doubts as far back as 1998 about Mr Blair’s attitude to foreign affairs because he had espoused what she described as his “moral imperialism” – the need to impose British values and ideas on other countries.
She explained – in reply to a question from a guest – that she had accepted Mr Blair’s arguments about the supposed dangers posed by Iraq because “he was our leader and I trusted him”.
After she had criticised the PM, she said: “I hope this isn’t going to be reported.”
Ms Hodge, minister for industry, also spoke about her days as council leader. She recalled that when she chaired the housing committee her then deputy, Jack Straw, now Leader of the Commons, pushed a policy that the Town Hall should ban big dogs on council estates, despite her objections.
After describing Mr Straw as a “populist which he is still to this day”, Ms Hodge said she lost the argument and the dogs were banned.
This had resulted in serious threats to her life which had gone on for 20 years. “Every year I used to get a threatening letter from a tenant who said that as a result her dog Flossie had had to be put down,” she said.
She suggested that perhaps the old Labour-controlled council in the 1970s and 1980s had gone too far because at one stage it had attempted to turn the borough into a “nuclear-free zone” even though the North London railway ran through Islington carrying nuclear material.
But she claimed the Labour council had pioneered many policies, such as decentralisation of services, which led the way to devolution in Wales and Scotland.
Turning to her present constituency in Barking, she warned about the rise of the extremist British National Party.
She warned that it was a different party from the old days when its members were often shaven-headed, tattooed men. Now, BNP members wore smart suits and canvassed door-to-door taking up residents’ complaints.
Ms Hodge warned that the BNP was beginning to attract Labour voters and could make inroads in the party’s heartlands. In her opinion it could win seats in the London Assembly elections in 2008.
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