{"id":247869,"date":"2022-01-03T08:08:28","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T08:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=247869"},"modified":"2022-01-04T08:32:25","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T08:32:25","slug":"huge-public-backlash-to-tony-blairs-knighthood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=247869","title":{"rendered":"Huge Public Backlash to Tony Blair\u2019s Knighthood"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8216;It makes a mockery of our sons&#8217; deaths&#8217;: Military mothers describe Tony Blair&#8217;s knighthood as the &#8216;ultimate insult&#8217; as more than 100,000 sign petition demanding for honour to be taken back from the former Prime Minister<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Sir Tony has long faced a backlash over his decision to lead the UK into war in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>It was announced on Friday night that he had been appointed to the Order of the Garter as a Knight Companion<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>All but one of the PMs before him were appointed a few years after leaving office, but he waited over 14 years<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>A Change.org petition set up against his knighthood has now reached 100,000 signatures\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Olivia Devereux-Evans and Tom Pyman \u2013 Daily Mail.com Jan 2022<\/strong><\/h1>\n<div id=\"attachment_60896\" style=\"width: 502px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Jimmy-Savile-and-a-younger-Tony-Blair.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-60896\" class=\"size-full wp-image-60896\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Jimmy-Savile-and-a-younger-Tony-Blair.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"492\" height=\"328\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Jimmy-Savile-and-a-younger-Tony-Blair.jpg 492w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Jimmy-Savile-and-a-younger-Tony-Blair-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 492px) 100vw, 492px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-60896\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In good company: the now notorious Jimmy Savile photographed with a younger Tony Blair.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Military mothers have described <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/tony_blair\/index.html\"><strong>Tony Blair<\/strong><\/a>&#8216;s knighthood as the &#8216;ultimate insult&#8217; while social media users have branded the former-Prime Minister a war criminal and more than 100,000 signed a petition for his honour to be taken back.<\/p>\n<p>The mothers, who lost their children in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/afghanistan\/index.html\"><strong>Afghanistan<\/strong><\/a>, have spoken out against Sir Tony&#8217;s knighthood and\u00a0have threatened to return Elizabeth Crosses which are given to bereaved families to show their disgust.<\/p>\n<p>One military mother, Carol Valentine, told the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/news\/politics\/tony-blair-knighthood-ultimate-insult-25832570\"><strong>Mirror\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>that Sir Tony&#8217;s knighthood is the &#8216;ultimate insult&#8217;, after her son Simon was killed while he cleared land mines in Afghanistan in 2009.<\/p>\n<p>And Hazel Hunt, whose son Richard died in Afghanistan, was pondering sending back the Elizabeth Cross that her family had received as a mark of protest.<\/p>\n<p>Another military mother, Caroline Whitaker, who lost son Gareth after he was shot dead by an Afghanistan police officer in 2012 said she felt the establishment was &#8216;making a mockery&#8217; of hers and other children&#8217;s deaths.<\/p>\n<p>On Twitter, many made their feelings clear following the\u00a0ennobling.\u00a0Political commentator Liam Young wrote: &#8216;The man should be in the dock of The Hague. What a shameful day.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Another said: &#8216;The contempt in which Britain&#8217;s elite holds the public has never been more eloquently expressed than in the decision to award Tony\u00a0Blair\u00a0the highest order of knighthood. One million Iraqis dead, three million dispossessed, a trail of blood to 7\/7. Rise\u00a0Sir\u00a0Tony!&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The appointment of Sir Tony in the Order of the Garter on Friday night also led to a petition being launched on Change.org by Angus Scott shortly after he was knighted which has now reached 100,000 signatures.<\/p>\n<p>Furious members of the public have rallied against his appointment and signed the petition since Friday.<\/p>\n<p>In an explanation in his petition, Mr Scott wrote: &#8216;Tony Blair caused irreparable damage to both the constitution of the United Kingdom and to the very fabric of the nation&#8217;s society. He was personally responsible for causing the death of countless innocent, civilian lives and servicement in various conflicts. For this alone he should be held accountable for war crimes.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Backlash occurred as the ex-prime minister has faced criticism for many years for sending troops into Afghanistan and Iraq and many branded him a &#8216;war criminal&#8217; who they did not believe worthy of a knighthood.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-10361663\/Military-mothers-Tony-Blairs-knighthood-ultimate-insult.html\">Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.change.org\/p\/the-prime-minister-tony-blair-to-have-his-knight-companion-of-the-most-noble-order-of-the-garter-rescinded\">Sign the petition here &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Make no mistake: Tony Blair is now deeply disliked by the British public. On Sunday evening when I signed this petition, just over 100,000 had signed. By Monday evening that  figure had grown to more than 500,000!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":247871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=247869"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247897,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247869\/revisions\/247897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/247871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=247869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=247869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=247869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}