I WAS inclined to think that Elizabeth Earle's hymn of praise for Saint Anthony Blair (Letters, November 18) was a joke. But in case not, let's have another look.

Ms Earle quotes Blair's "simple, deeply-felt words" (or pious platitudes?) after the July bombings. She should consider the bombings would probably not have occurred at all, but for Blair's illegal and now hugely unpopular war on Iraq.

As Blair led Britain into an unprovoked war of aggression, violating the UN Charter and international law, he is liable to indictment for war crimes, and should now, by rights, be on remand in a cell in The Hague. And as his decision to go to war was illegal, so all deaths resulting from it must be his personal responsibility.

In the words Ms Earle quotes, Blair claimed terrorists would not change our way of life. But he's already doing his best to change it himself, with new and authoritarian legislation that threatens traditional British rights and liberties and will further alienate British Muslims.

Meanwhile, 30 months after Blair's war, the people of Iraq now suffer what Britain suffered on July 7, several times a week. A large proportion of them find life more difficult and dangerous now than it was under the foul tyranny of Saddam Hussein.

Some hero you've got there, Ms Earle.

John Heawood,

Eastward Avenue,

Fulford, York.

Updated: 10:38 Friday, November 25, 2005