Andy McSmith's Diary: Tony Blair is back.. and so are the libelous statements

There was no MP in the outgoing Parliament more litigious than George Galloway - so unrestrained in hurling libels at Tony Blair

Former prime minister Tony Blair speaks during a visit to the Hitachi factory in his former constituency in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, 7 April 2015 (PA)

Tony Blair’s re-emergence brought out the bile in George Galloway, the only Labour MP to be expelled from the party during Blair’s years as leader. He tweeted: “Tony Blair killed a million people.” Actually, no, Tony Blair has never killed anybody. “And made £100 million out of it,” he added. Blair has made a lot of money, but not that much, and he did not make it out of killing people. Next from Galloway: “Blair, dripping with blood, pockets stuffed with gold beyond dreams of avarice comes out fighting for New Labour. Could anything be worse?” Yes, it could. And in case anyone thought Galloway is the forgiving kind, he added: “As long as God gives me breath Tony Blair will never have a moments peace until he faces justice. And after me my sons.”

There was no MP in the outgoing Parliament more litigious than George Galloway - so quick to reach for his lawyers when he was defamed: so unrestrained in hurling libels at Tony Blair.

Quote of the Day

"If Tony Blair was still Labour leader the Tories would be in a lot of trouble. Commanding the stage on campaign trail."

Tweet by Kay Burley, of Sky News, who only last week was being accused of anti-Labour bias.

Wakefield’s gay friendly local goes all UKIP

The Harewood Arms, a gay friendly pub in Wakefield, Yorkshire, has upset a few of his regulars by coming for UKIP – the party that led that opposes gay marriage, whose Scottish MEP David Coburn memorably compared supporters of gay marriage to “equality Nazis”. “We won’t be ramming our UKIP support in the face of customers,” the landlord, Matt Eason, told Pink News. “You can still come in and have a normal drink in a normal pub, Our view isn’t to try and brainwash our customers.” Even so, the Twitter reaction suggests that some of their regulars will not be coming back for a while.

Clear Answer of the Day

“I’ve given you a very clear answer and you’d have to be a contortionist to think that I hadn’t given you a pretty clear answer to that question.”

George Osborne gets fed up with being asked at a press conference questions about child benefit that he has no intention of answering.

You Can’t Get the Servants These Days

I hope William Cash has not embarrassed his father, Sir William Cash, again. Dad, who is standing for re-election after more than 30 years as a Tory MP, was not pleased when his journalist son announced in September that he was joining UKIP. “I completely disassociate myself,” said the old man. William junior also decided to stand for UKIP in North Warwickshire, which happens to be the most marginal Tory held seat in the country, thereby very probably handing victory to Labour’s Mike O’Brien.

Now, while other parliamentary candidates try to convince us that they live normal lives he has written a long piece for the Daily Telegraph complaining about perils of recruiting servants by advertising in The Lady. Cash and his young wife, Laura Cathcart, daughter of the 7th Earl of Cathcart, advertised for a general housekeeper to replace a “friendly but hopelessly chaotic young East European couple” who had decided they had rather live in Birmingham than continue working at the Cashs’ country pile, Upton Cressett, in Shropshire. They were overwhelmed with unsuitable applicants. It is so difficult, Cash complain, to know whether someone is “capable of starching and ironing your Turnbull & Asser shirts without burning the collars” until after you have hired them..