{"id":1178355,"date":"2022-01-01T18:34:46","date_gmt":"2022-01-01T23:34:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1178355"},"modified":"2022-01-01T18:34:49","modified_gmt":"2022-01-01T23:34:49","slug":"unhappy-new-year-sir-tony-blair-receives-top-knighthood-in-honours-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/unhappy-new-year-sir-tony-blair-receives-top-knighthood-in-honours-list\/","title":{"rendered":"Unhappy New Year: &#039;Sir&#039; Tony Blair Receives Top Knighthood in Honours List"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Funhappy-new-year-sir-tony-blair-receives-top-knighthood-in-honours-list%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1178355&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/GettyImages-1233297434-e1641032983715-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">Former Labour leader and prime minister Tony Blair has been dubbed&nbsp;a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/collections\/the-new-year-honours-2022\">New Year Honours Lists<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Iraq War architect, full name Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2021\/dec\/31\/tony-blair-to-be-given-most-senior-knighthood-in-new-year-honours-list\">said<\/a> it was \u201can immense honour to be appointed Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter\u201d \u2014 the United Kingdom\u2019s most senior order of chivalry \u2014 and that he was \u201cdeeply grateful to Her Majesty the Queen.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cIt was a great privilege to serve as Prime Minister and I would like to thank all those who served alongside me, in politics, public service and all parts of our society, for their dedication and commitment to our country,\u201d Blair added.<\/p>\n<p>Given his less than uncontroversial record and reputation, the honour was not met with universal acclaim as Britons welcomed 2022.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow very sad that to see that Anthony Blair is now a Knight of the Garter,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ClarkeMicah\/status\/1477185719143706628\">remarked<\/a> Peter Hitchens, the venerable British columnist and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/debate\/article-1233439\/Special-Investigation-PETER-HITCHENS--Blood-fear-Happiness-Street-China-threatens-obliterate-ancient-culture.html\">foreign correspondent<\/a> perhaps best known in America as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=S8ixuHa9DgY\">Christian, conservative brother<\/a> of the late Christopher Hitchens.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cUntil now it was possible to believe that the Sovereign thought that his support for the wrong and foolish invasion of Iraq (and its disastrous outcome) disqualified him from this honour,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Ex-PM Tony Blair Brands the Unvaccinated as \u2018Idiots\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8u8hU8b9Ci\">https:\/\/t.co\/8u8hU8b9Ci<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BreitbartLondon\/status\/1474035819274903563?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 23, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Ben Habib, a former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Brexit Party, now Reform UK, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/benhabib6\/status\/1477148198670155779\">stressed<\/a> that Blair should not only be excoriated for the Iraq War.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe pioneered the nanny controlling state; he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/uknews\/law-and-order\/6418456\/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html\">opened the flood gates to immigration<\/a>; he set in train devolution; he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/debate\/article-9333771\/PETER-HITCHENS-New-Labours-secret-IRA-fan-not-rare-youd-think.html\">buckled to a broken IRA<\/a>; he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2008\/may\/12\/cashforhonours.tonyblair\">stuffed the [House of] Lords full of his cronies<\/a>; he broke the nation\u2019s finances. He was a disaster,\u201d Habib recalled.<\/p>\n<p>It had long been rumoured that the Queen, 95, was resisting giving a knighthood to Blair, who left office in 2007, due to his having \u2014 as he himself put it \u2014&nbsp;lectured the monarch \u201cperhaps less sensitively than I should have about the need to learn lessons\u201d from the death of Princess Diana.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>He also broke royal protocol by giving lurid details of the royals\u2019 private life during weekends he spent at their Scottish estate while he was in office, describing his time there as \u201ca vivid combination of the intriguing, the surreal and the&nbsp;<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/hp\/front\/tony-blair-s-freaky-weekend-with-the-queen-at-balmoral-6508590.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">utterly freaky<\/a>\u201d in his memoirs.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Tony Blair: &#8216;Our Teams Are Embedded in Governments Around the World&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IlnE1mvxhq\">https:\/\/t.co\/IlnE1mvxhq<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BreitbartLondon\/status\/1259473262125346816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 10, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Blair did not fade into quiet retirement after stepping away from parliamentary politics, accepting an eyebrow-raising position as Middle East peace envoy on behalf of the United Nations, European Union, United States, and Russia in 2007 which he held until 2015 \u2014 a period not noted for great progress towards Middle East peace \u2014 and many lucrative private sector jobs with the likes of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/hp\/front\/blair-accused-of-taking-blood-money-over-ps1m-job-with-us-bank-profiting-from-iraq-war-7286225.html\">the JPMorgan Chase banking corporation<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2008\/jan\/29\/uk.tonyblair\">Zurich Financial Services<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He has also remained active in partisan politics, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/europe\/2016\/05\/03\/tony-blair-bill-clinton-team-campaign-brexit\/\">campaigning hard against Brexit<\/a> during the EU referendum in 2016 and even harder to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/europe\/2018\/11\/08\/blair-ill-do-everything-i-can-to-stop-brexit\/\">overturn the people\u2019s vote to leave<\/a> the bloc in the years following.<\/p>\n<p>More recently, he has pushed for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/europe\/2021\/09\/19\/tony-blair-says-govt-should-vaccinate-nursery-age-children-and-impose-vax-passes\/\">vaccination of nursery age children<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/europe\/2021\/07\/19\/treat-vaccinated-people-differently-to-avoid-quarantine-pingdemic-says-blair\/\">discrimination against the unvaccinated<\/a>, who he denigrates as&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/europe\/2021\/12\/23\/delingpole-if-you-dont-get-vaxxed-youre-an-idiot-says-satans-envoy-blair\/\">\u201cidiots\u201d<\/a> \u2014 despite having bragged in his memoirs about his own government having done \u201cthe minimum we could with the minimum expenditure\u201d to prepare for pandemics, which he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/europe\/2021\/03\/07\/tony-blair-dismissed-pandemics-as-panpanics-as-prime-minister-did-minimum-to-prepare\/\">dismissed as \u201cpanpanics\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Sir Tony probably deserves it tbh.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tom Harwood (@tomhfh) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tomhfh\/status\/1477044866001559554?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 31, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h5 class=\"western\"><em><span>Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter:<\/span><\/em><em>&nbsp;<\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JackBMontgomery\"><span>@JackBM<\/span><\/a><\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JackBMontgomery\"><span>ontgomery<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/h5>\n<h5 class=\"western\"><em><span>Follow Breitbart London on Facebook:<\/span><\/em><em>&nbsp;<\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BreitbartLondon\/\"><span>Breitbart London<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Labour leader and prime minister Tony Blair has been dubbed\u00a0a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in the New Year Honours Lists. The Iraq War &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1178355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1178355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1178355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1178355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1178355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}