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Originally Posted by Theodoric
I saw the first half, then gave up as it was just a rehash of previous government claims. I thought that it was going to be a programme about the run up to the war, but it was just another one of those where a selected audience asks questions of a government minister (Benn? God, my short term memory is failing fast) who cynically bats them all aside and reels off the party line. In this case it was:
a) We believed the evidence at the time and Parliament voted for the war.
b) We didn't need a second UN resolution as the existing ones were sufficient (and even if they weren't we could ignore the UN as, for example, we did over Kosovo).
c) No evidence yet of WMD, but some evidence of a programme.
d) Tony Blair is totally, utterly and completely trustworthy.
As I said, not worth the waste of electricity.
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Not at all. It is a shapshot of public opinion at this moment, which is far better than going back to the run up of the war and telling us the same things we already rememeber. There was actually very little audience participation, it is basically just displaying the results of a ICM poll. It seemed very balanced. Half the audience were pro, half against, and they had spokesmen on both sides (some US government official, and Harold Pinter)
Oh, and don't forget, this is what is regarded as from a left-wing media source (although the results are from an independent polling company). Given that it would be in their interests to play down results, or spin things in a more negative way, the true picture might be even more pro-war. I was suprised by the results but they are quite clear. We should bear in mind what I said above though. Next week, if the poll was re-done, it could quite concievably show the opposite result.