By Joe Murphy, Evening Standard
EFL. Hat tip to the Brothers Judd.
Another reason to love Tony Blair . . . .
Tony Blair fired a blistering attack at chief weasel Jacques Chirac today, accusing the French president of trying to dictate to the rest of Europe. In unusually brutal language, he charged President Chirac with treating countries including Britain as "second-class" states and acting as though only France and Germany mattered. Mr Blair was almost equally tough with junior assistant weasel German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, named and shamed for using "unfortunate" tactics at the Brussels summit.
| It's not good to speak ill of the politically dead... |
His official spokesman - referring to French and German efforts to impose their choice as the new president of the European Commission - said no country should order the others around. No one at today’s summit was left in any doubt about the target of Mr Blair’s assault, scripted after a night pondering a tirade by President Chirac at a dinner for the 25 leaders last night. The pair later squared up in a "heated" confrontation, diplomatic sources revealed. Mr Chirac was accused of bullying and insulting leaders of small countries who refused to support him against Mr Blair.
Blair was heard to recite part of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1: "Base muleteers of France! Like peasant foot-boys do they keep the walls, And dare not take up arms like gentlemen." Then it got ugly . . .
Mr Blair’s counter-attack today appeared to be an open challenge to Franco-German dominance of the EU, and a bid to rally the newly joined former eastern bloc states. . . . The row escalated after Mr Chirac accused Mr Blair of provoking crises on two fronts, by torpedoing Belgian premier Guy Verhofstadt - the French and German favourite for head of the commission - and by refusing to give ground on the planned constitution. He marched into dinner determined to see Mr Verhofstadt, who favours tax harmonisation and led opposition to the Iraq war, crowned president. Mr Blair - backed by Italy, Portugal and a range of newly-joined states - rejected the arch-federalist poodle Belgian. |