(Via LGF) Alice Thomson in the Telegraph - Benn - not Powell - made the case for war on Saddam:
It wasn't Colin Powell who swung opinion on this war, or even Hans Blix. It was Tony Benn. I hate to say it, but his interview was a masterpiece. Until then, we had been getting ourselves into a worse stew than Benn's tea leaves. Suddenly we saw what we were up against, and it galvanised even the most faint-hearted.Thanks Tony! I'm sure it was a dirty job, but someone had to do it. Bwahahahaha!
It had more impact because it came after Martin Bashir's interview with Michael Jackson, the second weirdest man in the world, who also has an obsession with plastic surgery (although Saddam does it on his doubles). They both spend millions on antique urns, incarcerate themselves in some Neverland and force their families to go out covered in veils, surrounded by two dozen bodyguards. Both have been accused of being above the law.
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The next evening, Tony Benn took over from Bashir in the interviewer's seat. His approach to his "friend" Saddam couldn't have been more different. Unlike Bashir, he didn't question a single utterance, but looked on with dogged devotion at his hero. He was fawning and sycophantic to a man I'd be even less inclined to let my child join in a sleep-over. This is a dictator who is so divorced from the truth that he had his doctor executed for suggesting he was schizophrenic.
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Ken Livingstone's traffic chaos ensured that I spent most of Wednesday driving round London listening to various talkshows. All of them had ditched their usual diet of Zoe Ball, Madonna's non-pregnancy and whether Catherine Zeta Jones should be photographed with her mouth full, to discuss the Benn interview. The DJ Jono, on Heart FM, usually a mild, jolly man, was incandescent.
Today's James Naughtie was also incensed. He couldn't keep the contempt out of his voice. How could you pander to a man who doesn't just dangle one baby out of a window, but allows thousands to starve to death?
Even Benn seemed to realise that he'd scored an own goal. The old Labour toff who has reincarnated himself as a cuddly, tea-drinking grandfather, suddenly turned nasty. He retorted: "If you'd have gone there, you would have learnt nothing. I got an opportunity to hear him."
