Trounced

As I write I am watching Tony Blair perspiring gently and writhing under the polite and gentle questioning of cuddly old Jon Snow, alternating between defiance, petulance and something close to tears of frustration at the inability of parliament to see that he is the only person in the government who knows what must be done to assure our security.
Once before, Blair asked us to trust in his judgement, and enough did so to enable him to take the country trotting along into disaster behind George W Bush.
"It is better to be right and lose than to be wrong and win" he said several times after the result of the vote was announced. This is a typically meaningless remark: in 2003, he was wrong, and won; today, he was wrong, and lost. We have learned something in the last four years; clearly, he hasn't.