Terry Jones: Tony really must try harder: His essay on Iraq shows he has little grasp of his subject, world politics

Dear Mr and Mrs Blair,

I have just had to mark Tony's essay, Why We Must Never Abandon This Historic Struggle in Iraq, and I am extremely worried.

Your son has been in the sixth form now for several years, studying world politics, and yet his recent essay shows so little grasp of the subject that I can only conclude he has spent most of that time staring out of the window.

His essay, of course, is written with his usual passion and conviction, but, in the real world, passion and conviction do not count for many marks.

Crucially, Tony does not seem to have read any of the first-hand accounts that are easily available and describe what is really going on in Iraq. On the recent escalation in violence, for example, he writes: The insurgents are former Saddam sympathisers ... terrorist groups linked to al-Qaida and, most recently, followers of ... Moqtada al-Sadr. This is simply not good enough. Tony ignores the multitude of reports indicating that revulsion against the occupation is now widespread among ordinary people.

More...