Letter: Slogans which make no sense

Is it possible that Tony Blair's article on Kosovo was in fact destined for some other newspaper and appeared by mistake? Alongside a number of thoughtful and illuminating pieces on the same subject it seemed more like an essay by a primary school student rather than a serious response to your newspaper's point of view. In fact, it did not address a single criticism of the grounds and conduct of this wretched war but offered instead a laboured mantra on the awfulness of Milosevic ( as if your readers were unaware) and how it's great to live in a liberal democracy (again, as if your readers were unaware). And it's the same mantra that every New Labour minister chants ad nauseam as if repetition will render it the only truth.

I wonder also if Mr Blair is aware of some of the ironies of his prose. Take his assertion that the Nato strike is "a battle for values"; written on the tenth anniversary of Tiananmen the logic for world order is either frightening or just plain inconsistent. And then we have the notion that the UK is "a vibrant democracy" when, in fact, not a single debate or vote on the war has occurred in Parliament and not a single clause in the Nato treaty should have triggered the current response to Serbia. Such is the Third Way, short on intellectual honesty, long on propaganda. No, Mr Blair, your letter cannot have been meant for the Independent on Sunday.

GRAHAM LANE

London W5