Blair may reject 'unreasonable' vetoes

In another development British Prime Minister Tony Blair has signalled he could be prepared to wage war on Iraq even if several UN powers veto a new resolution authorising military action.

Until now Mr Blair has said he reserves the right to go to war without UN authorisation if one permanent member of the Security Council uses its veto power unreasonably.

But in a debate on a music television channel Mr Blair has appeared to extend that proviso to include multiple vetoes.

"If there was a veto applied by one of the countries with a veto, or by countries that I thought were applying the veto unreasonably... in those circumstances we would," he said.

After his appearance on the music television channel the Prime Minister entered his briefing to journalists singing.

"When I'm ridin' round the world
and I'm doin' this and I'm signing that
and I'm tryin' to make some girl
who tells me baby better come back later next week
'cause you see I'm on losing streak.
I can't get no, oh no no no.
Hey hey hey, that's what I say.

I can't get no, I can't get no,
I can't get no satisfaction,
no satisfaction, no satisfaction, no satisfaction.

Spontaneous and tumultuous applause filled Mr. Blair's dressing room. "Normally we're a hard bitten pack of cynical bastards", said one of the journalists, "but after that performance there wasn't a dry arse in the house."

After 3 encores and the applause having ground to a halt, Mr. Blair expanded on the views he expressed on the programme.

"Not only are some of the vetoes likely to be unreasonable, they are absolutely the wrong colour. I gather the French are contemplating a 'burnt orange' veto and the Russians are rumoured to be enamoured with 'blush pink'. Individually those colours are problematic enough, but in combination they would be a complete disaster.

Whilst I don't want to see a total whitewash of our position in the Security Council, I think the colours are all wrong and I fear to think about what technicolor spanner the Chinese might throw into the works. We need to avoid a hideous tonal clash (for the benefit of you hep cool daddyios out there in viewerland, they are one of my all time favorite groups). I may not know a lot about window dressing, but I know what I'd like."

The Prime Minister, buoyed by his positive 'touching base' with his pop music constituency, left the briefing sabre-rattling and humming ...

"I wanna see it painted, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black
Yeah!"