It runs out of honour, in the end.”Booth advocates immediate withdrawal. But Cheney and Bush are in serious trouble because of Iraq.”"Not just Cheney and Bush.”"Sure But in America a leader has only two terms In Britain, when a party rules for a great length of time.. it runs out of ideas It runs out of steam. Some countries are rolling in riches, using up all the energy…”"Halliburton…” I begin.”Yes,” he interrupts, “I know all about Halliburton The rest of the world is starving We respond with token gestures. Once we start talking about Iraq, something changes: it’s not long before Booth has taken off at speed, with his leash trailing behind him.”This is not a moral conflict,” Booth says “This war is about the poor people in the world.
Their differences were curiously anticipated by Booth’s defining role as Mike, son-in-law to Warren Mitchell’s reactionary cockney, Alf Garnett, in the groundbreaking BBC comedy Till Death Us Do Part, which ran from 1966 to 1975.”The world is at war,” Mike told his bigoted father-in-law, in one episode. “And pensioners are struggling to exist – abandoned by the moribund policies of your bloody government.”When Booth – who has campaigned for Labour in every election since 1945 – speaks about politics, he appears to be stifling his instincts out of duty, like a guide dog eyeing a rabbit he can’t chase. My host is an unreconstructed pacifist and socialist, appalled by his son-in-law’s catastrophic adventure in Iraq. There are 22 years between Tony Booth (omega) and his son-in-law; if you had encountered their opinions only on paper, you would assume Booth’s to be the voice of youthful revolt, and Blair’s to be the weary pragmatism of age.
On the flight from London, these cuttings alone exceeded my hand-luggage allowance. Stephenie, 50, who has been married three times before, is described as “the wife from hell” and – courtesy of her mother Blanche, from Urmston – “the daughter from hell.”The worst I can say of Stephenie, based on the time I spent with her, is that she is a personable woman who is completing a PhD in politics at Galway.The criticism is fiercest in the Mail, and intensifies markedly after Blair took office in May 1997.”Are you sure?” Booth says. “Why would that be?”When I ask him what qualities he thinks he shares with Cherie, he replies: “I guess people would say: ‘the mad eyes and the jaw line.’ “Politically, they don’t appear to be converging. I remember one wine bar in New Brighton where the two were indistinguishable.”A large holdall I’ve brought with me contains hundreds of articles, in which Booth takes beatings from ex-partners who expound on man’s inhumanity to woman.
