The Trial of The Century

Of what are we to witness the beginning tomorrow? Nothing less than the calling to account of the last great monster of The Bloody Century, which began in 1914. He is worse than Bush, having started before 2001.

No, of course he is not as bad as Hitler, although if you do as people usually do and concentrate only on those victims of one particular Nazi crime among many who happened to belong to one category among many, then Blair's half a dozen entirely voluntary wars probably double the six million figure, and certainly come very close to doing so.

And no, of course he is not as bad as Stalin or Mao. But is that really supposed to be any sort of praise? If the numbers game is the game that we are playing, then he far, far surpasses numerous reviled figures who are now beyond reach: Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein (who would in any case have been dead by now). The remaining likes of Robert Mugabe and even Kim Jong-il barely register next to Blair's global reign of terror. The deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or in the Allied carpet-bombing of Hitler's Catholic and Social Democratic opponents, are as the tiniest drops to Blair's ocean of blood.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Amin and Pol Pot were never tried. Bush, Mugabe and Kim almost certainly never will be. Saddam's "trial" was unworthy of the name. For them, and for so many others besides, only one figure stands substitute, and very deservedly so. Blair has it coming, anyway. But there will be no harm in also requiring him to take it for the team. Only then and thus can we consign The Bloody Century to the history books.