Brit writer Peter Morgan who wrote “The Queen” and “The Deal”, two dramas tracking Tony Blair’s dealings with HMQ and Gordon Brown respectively, is working on the third part of what is obviously a trilogy (as we classicists say) dealing with Blair’s relations with Bill Clinton.
Doubtless this will be fascinating. But what we all want to know is, what happened when Blair went to meet George Bush at his ranch a year or so after 9/11? The decision to invade Iraq came shortly after (although Blair always denied it did). The deal might even have been done over the barbecued ribs.
Morgan is also apparently writing a new treatment of John Le Carre’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”, one of the best things to have appeared on British TV. This, I seem to recall, appeared in the 1980s, starring the brilliant Alec Guinness as George Smiley and the even more brilliant Ian Richardson as Bill Haydon.
This just seemed to sum up the British establishment, good as well as bad. The dramatisation was by Arthur Hopcraft, a journalist turned scripwriter who, as a football writer, also produced the definitive biography of George Best.
So Morgan is setting himself high targets (which I’m sure he’ll reach).
I still wish he was focussing on that weekend in Texas though.