Did they applaud Blair or not?
Jonathan Freedland, writing in the Guardian said that:So when Blair said that a withdrawal from Iraq or Afghanistan would be "a craven act of surrender", he said it to silence
Various bloggers (those are just two examples out of many) have taken issue with this such as here and here, and provide a link to the speech to show that there was applause (its about 37-38 mins in).
And yet The Economist's Bagehot column also says:
A passage in Mr Blair's speech that put Iraq in the context of what he called “the global struggle against terrorism without mercy or limit” was heard in near-silence.
So who is right? Freedland might be lying, yet it is strange then that the Bagehot columnist said the same thing (unless Freedland writes the Bagehot column or the columnist lazily took that from Freedland's article). Or it coud be that the hall did seem perceptibly more silent during that part of the speech. Certainly hearing it on TV can be misleading (as it depends on the microphones and the sound level). As could hearing it in the hall, I suppose. Has anyone else who was there commented?
Update: In the comments Peter Briffa points out The Guardian has issued a correction, noting that on their 'clapometer' it recorded sustained applause. Furthermore on CiF Freedland said this: Seasiderock and others have pointed out an error in this piece. I was right to note that Tony Blair received no applause when he said terrorism was "not the consequence of foreign policy" - but wrong to say that he received the same treatment when he declared that a withdrawal from Iraq or Afghanistan would be "a craven act of surrender." My mistake was to inadvertently transpose a note I had made -- "no applause" -- while following an advance text of the speech, from one page of that text to another. That is emphatically not an excuse, but rather an explanation for a mistake which, I agree, should be corrected. I hope the Reader's Editor will run a correction in the paper shortly. Thus the Bagehot remark is now the one that needs explaining.
posted by Matthew @ 9/30/2006 08:58:00 PM
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