Embarrassing Premier

Is there anything this Government will not stoop to? It was bad enough that Blair should try to slip his interview by police investing cash for honours behind a smokescreen of post office closures and the Princess Diana crash inquiry. But then we have the shameful spectacle of the Attorney General announcing that a major fraud inquiry into a multi-million pound arms deal has been dropped after the Saudis threatened to pull out of a deal to buy Typhoon Eurofighters.

What price British justice? About £10 billion, it would appear. That is the value of the Typhoon deal the Saudis had threatened to walk away from if the Serious Fraud Office probe wasn’t dropped.

The Government and the Attorney General can offer all the weasel words they like, but a major inquiry has been dropped and the future of a big defence deal has been secured in one fell swoop.

And all on the day a serving British Prime Minister is questioned by the police for the first time in our history.

We would have the right to ask whether this appointment for the police to visit Number Ten was deliberately arranged for the day, too, that brave soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are honoured, including a Military Cross for Stourbridge heroine Michelle Norris and a posthumous Victoria Cross for paratrooper Corporal Bryan Budd. To have used their bravery to further divert attention from Mr Blair would have been truly despicable.

Labour spin doctor Jo Moore infamously coined the phrase “good day to bury bad news” with her September 11 email. She paid for that throwaway comment with her job.

It would be too much to expect that Tony Blair and his spin doctoring associates would feel any kind of shame for trying to bury the police questioning on such a day. They probably see it as clever political manouevering.

But ordinary people in this country are not fooled by such smoke and mirrors trickery.

Our Prime Minister has become an embarrassment. The sooner he goes, the better.

We all salute your bravery, Michelle

Michelle Norris is a true Black Country heroine. That is why she was honoured by this newspaper as a Local Hero at a ceremony last week. Today she is the proud bearer of a Military Cross, an award which is second only to the Victoria Cross. She is the first woman to be awarded such a high award for gallantry - after saving the life of a fellow soldier while under intense sniper fire in Iraq.

She has shown the true nature and potential of this nation’s youth. Given guidance and discipline, she has shown herself to be a hugely impressive young woman, mature beyond her 19 years.

It is a proud day for all of us in the Black Country. We salute her.