Tony Blair Pretending 1953-2006

Tony Blair Pretending died last Friday during an interview with Al-Jazeera when the Prime Minister agreed with Sir David Frost that the Iraq war had “so far been pretty much of a disaster”.

Tony Blair Pretending was born in Edinburgh in 1953 and quickly established itself, watching from the seats behind the goal at St James' Park as Jackie Milburn played for Newcastle United - despite being only four-years-old, never having gone to a football match at the time and there being no seats in the stand in the late 50's. Just ten years later, Tony Blair Pretending was stowing away on a flight from Newcastle to the Bahamas – completely unhindered by the fact that no such flight ever existed between those two airports and the fact Tony Blair himself was being educated in Scotland at the time. After Fettes College, Tony Blair Pretending went up to Oxford where it studied law and became the new Mick Jagger, God’s gift to women and the greatest rock musician ever to have lived.

It was with its involvement in politics that Tony Blair Pretending (and its friends Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson) began to come into its own as it first convinced the Labour Party that Mr Blair was a CND-loving, Europe-hating, card-carrying socialist. Later it was to convince the whole country that it was a "pretty straight kind of guy" who would right all Britain's wrongs by a complete break with Thatcherism, having already led Gordon Brown to believe he would become the next leader of the Labour Party after Tony Blair, before persuading the future Chancellor that yes it was his turn to pay for lunch and no that wasn’t a silver fork sticking in his back.

Given its enormous talents (scoring the winning goal in '66, discovering the structure of DNA and making love to the young Clara Bow in the 1920's among them), it came as no surprise when Tony Blair Pretending assumed its rightful position on the world stage. By 1997 it had formed a “special relationship”with America's President Clinton, repeatedly assuring him of Tony Blair's true and unwavering love, before going on to say exactly the same to President Bush after the year 2000. By the early noughties Tony Blair Pretending achieved its greatest ever flight of fantasy, persuading the British people that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and thereby justifying its support for the invasion of Iraq. When later challenged on this point, Tony Blair Pretending was able to point out that, in any event, it had consulted God on the matter during one of its regular briefings with God at Number Ten, and that God had given His full backing.

Tony Blair Pretending succumbed to a massive and fatal truth attack on Friday and was buried at the Church of St Billy the Liar. The service was conducted by Monsignor Jeffrey Archer and was attended by friends and colleagues from around the world, including Jesus, Elvis, Harvey the six-foot rabbit, Santa and the Tooth Fairy.

Miraculously, on the third day, Tony Blair Pretending rose from the grave and appeared to its disciples on the road to electing Gordon Brown, where it proved it was very much alive by insisting it had never met Sir David Frost in its life, let alone been interviewed by him.