I own my readers another apology. In a post yesterday, I pointed out that Tony Blair - currently in Pakistan to meet president Pervez Musharraf - at least did not feel the need to salute the military dictator's 'courage, strength and indefatigability', as George Galloway famously did on meeting Saddam Hussein.

But I've just heard the World at One on Radio Four. There was Blair, praising Musharraf's 'courage and his leadership in taking Pakistan on this journey of change and modernisation' .

Oooh, you smooth talking bastard, Tony. Journey of change and modernisation? As I said yesterday, Amnesty International describes the direction this 'journey of change and modernisation' has taken. Salient features include 'arbitrary detention, torture, death in custody, and extra-judicial execution.'

I await the analyses offered by the Nick Cohens, Oliver Kamms, Drink Soaked Trots and Harry's Places of this world with interest. They can only be morally consistent. Can't they?

Once again, independent working class politics proves itself as the only theoretical basis on which serious socialists can operate.