The Heavenly Diary of Anthony Linton Blair

© Ian Lawton 2006

Pheeew. What a relief!! I mean, you know, I’ve always been a pretty ordinary sort of Christian guy, so I was pretty sure something was gonna happen. But when it got close to the end I started to worry a bit. I mean, all that conviction I had about bombing Iraq and killing all those people? It left me a bit towards the end, even though I didn’t like to admit it, perhaps even to myself. But what if I had got it wrong? It would be the old fiery abyss for me, and no mistake.

So I don’t mind telling you it is a big weight off my mind to find myself surrounded by all this bright white light, and this feeling of… well, I don’t wanna come over all blubbing-on-the-death-of-the-People’s-Princess on you, but it’s just… overwhelming love. But where the hell is St Peter? I’m sure I’m supposed to meet him, just to make sure. He’ll probably give me a bit of a ticking off, but I’m sure I’ll be able to talk him round. Can’t see any demons with red hot pokers ready to bend me over, and Old Nick hasn’t put in an appearance, so that’s gotta be a good sign, right?

Ahh, someone’s coming, that’ll probably be him now. Hang on. What the hell is he doing here!?

“Salam, Tony, you old mother-was-a-goat-and-father-a-son-of-camel-spawn!” At least I think that’s what he said, it was all kind of telepathic and I was trying to get used to it.

“Um, hi there, um, Saddam. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“No? Ah, you have so much to learn, Tony.” (I think he added “you-donkey-snake-something-or-other”, but I can already see that his little jokes are going to get boring so we’ll forget about them now.)

“But you know, Saddam, if you, um, don’t mind me being so bold, you, er, you were, you know, a really bad man, Saddam. Shouldn’t you be, you know… downstairs?”

“Oh, Tony, Tony, Tony (etc.). There is no such thing as downstairs. It was all made up to keep the people in line.”

“Yippee, what a relief! Ahem… anyway, enough about me. Where is St Peter then, or is he just made up as well?”

“I’m afraid so. I’m your official welcoming party.”

“You! What the… now look here Saddam, I’m pleased for you that you’re not having the poker treatment and all that, but I’m buggered if I’m going to be judged by you of all people. You’d better take me to the Top Man.”

“Ah yes, the Top Man, yes…”

“Oh no. No! You’re not gonna tell me that He’s made up too.”

“Sorry, Tony.” He was actually coming across as a really nice guy by now. He was even trying to put his arm round me. This was all just too confusing.

“So who’s gonna judge me then? Not you, surely.”

“No, not me Tony, not me.”

Now all of a sudden I can see everything. You know how they say that your whole life flashes in front of you when you die? Well, they’re right. That’s exactly what is happening. It’s like a video in my head, even though I don’t really have a head any more. I can see all the ways in which I did right by my family and friends, and all the good things I really tried to do as Prime Minister. I can especially see all the great intentions I had when I came into office. But now I’m seeing what happened when I got bogged down. It was just so easy to get sucked in, wrapped up by the system. All those lobbies to appease, and power to maintain – cos you’re wasting your time and can’t do anything without it. But I just wasn’t brave enough. It wasn’t that redneck Bush… him I could handle easily enough… but it was the whole system, the whole special relationship. All those bastards wearing me down and telling me that we had to go into Iraq, and that it really was for their own good, and if we got a few contracts out of it, well that would just pay our expenses. I can’t believe I fell for it. I knew in my heart that those advisors and lobbyists in both our administrations only wanted the money and the power, they didn’t really want to help the Iraqi people at all. But I didn’t have the guts to stand up to them and rock the boat. I trusted to luck that I could help to make it all turn out right after the invasion. And I was wrong. And I ended up helping to create the most unholy mess of the twenty-first century, with the whole Middle East in political turmoil, and civil unrest on a huge scale as different factions bandied together. What a bloody fool! What have I done?

“So, you want anyone else to judge you, or you happy doing it yourself?”

“What? You mean… you mean that it’s down to me to see what I’ve done, and no-one else?”

“That’s right.”

“Oh, well, that’s all fine and dandy. But what about my punishment? If there’s no hell, how do I atone for my sins? Go and fetch me a lash and help me get this shirt off, I can feel a bit of the old self-flagellation coming on.”

“No, Tony, that’s not how it works either.”

“No? So how have you atoned for all the shit you caused?” Somehow, slowly, that slight insecurity and timidity that had often dogged me in life was starting to ebb away.

“Listen, Tony, we were all in this together. You, me, Bush, leaders and politicians and businessmen the world over. We all fucked up. You might think I did more than most, and I don’t mind admitting that in my desire to hold my country together with so many warring factions I allowed myself to become completely dehumanised. My brutality against them is now totally abhorrent to me. But I was faced with a huge challenge with a country whose artificial boundaries you bastards in the West created. And you were my best friends, you were encouraging me, not long before you changed your mind and decided I was public enemy number one to suit your own agenda. So, ok, I failed spectacularly, and it’s going too take me a long, long time to get over that properly. But we all screwed up in different ways. And were my crimes greater than yours, or Bush’s, or of all those others behind the scenes? Who is to judge? And what would be the point? There’s only one thing we can do, and that is to learn from our mistakes. And to try to help the rest of humanity do the same thing. So that one day we might just stop killing our fellow men and our planet, all for the sake of material wealth, and power and influence on earth. What does it mean to any of us up here? Nothing. Now we can see how cowardly and foolish and self-interested we were. But the trick is to take that back with us, and to make it work next time.

“What do you mean, take it back?”

“Still don’t remember, Tony?”

Gradually some clarity was starting to dawn. I could see my various lives stretching out behind me, across all the ages of mankind. Poor lives, rich lives; good lives, bad lives; happy lives, sad lives; long lives, short lives; important lives, unimportant lives. A whole vista of human experience was there for me to see. But it was clear that there was still more to do.

“Hmm. I guess those Hindu chaps knew a thing or two then, more than us Christians and Muslims, eh?”

“In some ways.”

“So I suppose we’re both gonna have to go back as worms or something, and spend eons working our way back up again?”

“No, Tony. Come on, think. Remember. It doesn’t work like that either, does it?”

Saddam’s kind but insistence gaze seemed to flick some kind of final switch in my head. Now I really could see it all. I would have to choose my next life for myself. There would be things I would have to work on for myself, especially the bravery to stand up for what I intuitively knew to be right. But at some point I would have to take on a position of responsibility again, in the hope of making a better job of it than I had done this time, and helping all of us to move forwards to a better future.

Saddam could see my concern about making the right choices. This was all so vast. “Don’t worry, Tony, there’s people here who can help us to make the right decisions about what to do next, and when. Let’s do it together.”

And with that he took me by the arm and led me further into the light.