Jubilant Blair trounces Ba'ath opponent

A jubilant Tony Blair has been tastefully celebrating his crushing victory over the forces of reaction after seeing off a supposedly tough challenge from what advisers have called "an appeaser".

Despite massive media backing, the Sedgefield result saw Blair retain almost 60 per cent of the vote whereas the man backing a return to power for the Ba'ath Party — Reg Keys — polled only a measly sixth of that.

Publicly, Blair was obliged by his natural politeness to say nothing negative and instead he bravely continued to smile at the count even while Keys droned on about a subject that we should all now have "moved on" from.

Privately, he is understood to have punched the air with delight when he learned of the utter defeat of a man who had so obviously misunderstood the necessity of aiding the brave Iraqi people that he was unwilling to sacrifice his offspring for the Holy War Against Terror™.

Blair has not told reporters, even off the record, that he believes Keys arranged the death of his son simply to increase his election chances, but was overheard telling Home Secretary Charles Clarke that "it must surely be a reasonable possibility and worthy of investigation".

Where this leaves Mr Keys is uncertain. His performance in constituencies other that Sedgefield can only be described as lamentable — he received no votes at all anywhere else in Britain despite a huge press campaign on his behalf.

However, Labour Party workers at their London HQ are understood even now to be searching for pictures of the meeting that surely must have taken place between Keys and fellow despot Saddam Hussein during which the former probably saluted the latter's "indefatigability".

Previously

• British public out of whack on Iraq
• Blair urged to come clean on WMD
• MI6 dossier 'complete fiction' says government