Thursday 8 January 2009

"Slowly but surely the veil of secrecy is being lifted"

I seem to be making something of a habit these days of being mentioned as a footnote in articles about far more important people. After a three and a half year wait and a lot of digging by the Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb (who is forever known in our office as Normal Lamb after some lobbyists sent out glossily embossed invitations to a parliamentary event hosted by someone of that name, about a year or so ago), details have been revealed of a series of meetings Tony Blair had in the weeks immediately after the 2005 election.

He met such luminaries as Nancy Dell'Ollio; the chairman of a US cement group; the chair of the Countryside Alliance; the chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee; and just one lowly backbench MP.... I could endorse this new era of openness by revealing all that took place on that momentous occasion, but then I'd have to kill you.

Actually, I have no idea what they're on about. A group of us did go to see TB in his rooms in Parliament only a few weeks after the General Election to lobby about an Airbus deal (he was already on the case), but that delegation was led by Mark Tami and Doug Naysmith, as the MPs with Airbus plants in their constituencies. There were four or five of us there, and Mark and Doug did all the talking. If it wasn't that, I have no idea what it was. (That's my story, and I'm sticking to it).

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