Poised on the brink of power, Tony Blair made an impassioned vow: Britain's jealously-held culture of official secrecy would be dramatically swept away.
Fifteen years later, the country has a thriving right to information law, with almost 44,000 requests made last year, and recently announced it would accept demands for government data posted using Twitter. So former prime minister Blair must now reflect with pride on delivering his promise?
Not exactly.
"You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop," Blair wrote of himself in his autobiography "A Journey" last year, recalling his adoption of the law in 2005. "There is really no description of stupidity, no matter how vivid, that is adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it." .... Read more at http://www.nytimes.com
