1. It was all John Major’s fault.
2. It was all Saddam Hussein’s fault.
3. Divine intervention (more or less the right kind).
4. Divine intervention (more or less the wrong kind).
5. The dog ate my dossier. We had to piece together the fragments as best we could.
6. The dog ate my dossier. We had to reconstruct it all from memory as best we could.
7. The dog ate my dossier. No further explanation is either necessary nor desirable!
8. No, well I mean, y’know, no, no, NO! He really DID eat it!
9. Well, I mean, y’know, it’s like this… I mean, from a particular point of view, as it were…
10. The dog ate my dossier, but it wasn’t my dossier, and it wasn’t my dog, it was actually a slobbering, vicious enemy of Our Common Humanity, and in any case, it wasn’t even technically a dossier.
11. Oh, by the way, I just found out recently I have self-diagnosed Asperger’s syndrome, and so I am not remotely responsible for my actions.
12. Oh, by the way, I just found out recently I have self-diagnosed Asperger’s syndrome, and so I am not remotely responsible for my actions, and by the way, I really am a brilliantly clever person, and if I didn’t suffer from self-diagnosed Asperger’s syndrome, I’d probably be clever enough to know that this would, in such a case, technically be boasting, I mean, if you want to think of it like that.
13. The Zionists did it.
14. The anti-Zionists did it.
15. OK well maybe they both did it, I mean there’s a certain school of thought, if you will, which suggests that more often than not les extremes often are indeed really touching, aren’t they?
… Well, from a particular point of view, I guess, if you really had to put a gun to my head, I mean that’s pretty much the way of it, as you might say!
16. Look, I mean please stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but I mean, for what it’s worth, and again, please do tell me if you’re more or less acquainted with this particular line of thinking and so on and so forth, but…
I ONLY HAD THE VERY BEST OF INTENTIONS!!!
17. If Harold Wilson were among us, he would have done exactly the same thing.
18. If Batman or Chuck Norris or Obi Wan-Kenobi were among us, he would have done exactly the same thing.
… Well, I should like to think so, anyway! I mean, heaven knows, let’s not be so egregiously one-sided and dogmatic about these things, eh?
19. Saddam Hussein was a vicious dictator who was killing his own people… and that’s argument enough for me!
20. Saddam Hussein was a sleazy, unprincipled warmonger who sent his people off to war without any conceivable justification… and that’s argument enough for me! I mean, personally I think anyone who would ever so much as remotely contemplate anything so utterly wicked and inexcusable ought to be on death row already, to be honest!
21. Stop being relativistic and over-complicating things!
22. Stop being dogmatic and over-simplifying things!
23. My enemies are all just radical right-wing bigots who are not worth the trouble of listening to anyway in the first place!
24. My enemies are all just radical left-wing bigots who are not worth the trouble of listening to anyway in the first place!
25. By the way, I still think intervening on behalf of Kosovo was the right thing to do.
26. Oh and by the way, I still think intervening on behalf of Deirdre Barlow was the right thing to do!
27. Seven years is far too short, let’s start all over again!
28. Seven years is far too long, let’s start all over again!
29. Actually no, let’s just call the whole thing off!
30… Hm! Anyone fancy a guitar solo? 😉 x
And one last try before sentencing…
Ah…
OK.
I suppose the war didn’t go so well then.
Well, from a particular point of view, as you might say.
Perhaps you could all just give me one last chance?
I mean, let me put it this way, it’s like…
If at first you don’t succeed try again.
And fail again.
Fail again.
And again.
Even…
Even miserably!
But fail better…