Blair 'cried for Iraq war victims'

[Magda Hassan]

Blair laughs off claim he plagiarised Queen meeting

Tony Blair said he had never seen the film
Tony Blair has laughed off suggestions he plagiarised an account of his first audience with the Queen from a film version of the meeting.
In his memoirs Mr Blair recalls the Queen telling him: "You are my tenth prime minister. The first was Winston. That was before you were born."
Those words are very similar to those used in the 2006 Oscar-winning film The Queen.
Scriptwriter Peter Morgan suggested Mr Blair confused reality with that film.
Mr Morgan suggested that Mr Blair had either chosen to endorse the film version, or had had "one gin and tonic too many and confused the scene in the film with what had actually happened".
Mr Blair said he had never seen the film, however.
He said: "I hope Peter Morgan is being tongue-in-cheek about this. I can't believe that they would have written the movie without talking to somebody," he told BBC Radio 2's Simon Mayo Drivetime.
"I have told this story many times because I always think it's quite a funny story."
He added, laughing: "Are you suggesting I plagiarised it from the film?
"I don't think that it is terribly odd because, as I say, it is a story that I have often told so maybe someone heard it and said it to him, but it is what happened."