Peter Brierley refused to shake Tony Blair's hand. Peter Brierley campaigning for peace, two week after attending a service at St. Paul's Cathedral commemorating the Iraq war dead. At the reception after that service Peter Brierley father of Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley who was killed in Iraq, noticed with disbelief Tony Blair the former British Prime Minister responsible for taken the country into the unpopular war, signing the book of remembrance for the dead “Like some kind of celebrity”! He approach Tony Blair who offered his hand but Peter Brierley refused to shake Blair’s hand, quietly saying "your hand has my son's blood on it, and all of the other men and women who died in this war; and one day you will have to answer for what you had done!” Blair looked blankly in response as his security men shielded him aside and Brierley walked away. A lady, who had been looking at this from a distance, asked Brierley afterwards what he had said to the former Prime Minister because Tony Blair looked like the blood had drained out of his face. Consequently this incident was reported in the national media in a significant way because it resonated with so many people. Peter Brierley from Yorkshire is now campaigning shoulder to shoulder with other anti-war military families & soldiers leading the march, for bringing the Troops Home from Afghanistan, a demonstration called by Stop the War Coalition, CND and BMI; on the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. London 24th October 2009
Date: 24/10/2009
Location: Marble Arch, London, UK
Photographer: Richard Keith Wolff
