Blair's losing the plot.

I've long thought that Blair is simply losing the plot, as his decision making has been getting more and more bizarre over the past few weeks.

First, we heard that he was making plans to give Margaret Thatcher - the most reviled Prime Minister in British history - a state funeral. This decision would have been appalling enough if the old hag was dead, but when it's made whilst she still lives it simply becomes perverse.

Now we find that he's been secretly giving honours to a raft of senior US military and business figures in the past three years.

The recipients include General Tommy Franks, the man responsible for the "Shock and Awe " Iraq war attack plan, and Riley Bechtel, head of the Bechtel Corporation.

Mr Bechtel, the billionaire head of the US-based engineering giant, was handed a CBE for "services to UK-American commercial relations" in 2003, according to information obtained by The Observer. He is a likely bidder for future nuclear plants in the UK and has made hundreds of millions of dollars in reconstruction projects in Iraq. Others honoured include several senior US military figures, among them Vice-Admiral Timothy Keating, the man in charge of maritime forces during the Iraq invasion, and Rear Admiral Barry Costello, commander of the Third Fleet and Task Force 55.

That's lovely isn't it. The man who brought us Shock and Awe has been given a wee medal by the queen.

These awards are supposed to be given to people who have enhanced Britain in some way. Quite how General Tommy Franks enhanced Britain by shocking Baghdad into awe is unclear to me, but then, perhaps that's why the awards have been given in secret. Though I am left questioning what the purpose is of a gong that you can't boast about.

But, such trifles don't matter in planet Blair.

It used to be that politicians reflected the opinion of the general public when giving out such honours. For instance the awarding of a knighthood to the Irishman Bob Geldoff after Live Aid seemed very much to reflect the mood of the general public.

Blair seems to be veering quite away from the mood of the British heartland when he finds himself giving honours out to Andy Hayman, the Met Assistant Commissioner who is facing a disciplinary charge as a result of the Independent Police Complaints Commission inquiry.

He is also the man who recently brought us the delightful events in Forest Gate, when the police raided a house and shot one of the occupants, only for a week later to have to release them admitting a dreadful mistake but promising us, "The public may have to get used to this sort of incident, with the police having to be safe rather than sorry."

An honour is supposed to a public recognition of service to the country. To give them out in secret negates their very purpose.

It's a bit like planning funerals for people who aren't dead.

It's simply bizarre.

Blair. Plot. Losing it.

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Tags: Blair, honours, secret, US, Hayman,