Blair expresses home truths.

WELL said, Tony, at last a world leader able to address convincingly the need to respond to the monstrous attacks on September 11.

Rising above narrow fixation with Bin Laden and the Taliban regime, he sees the "war" as not just against terrorism, but also against the crimes of world hunger, Rwanda, the Congo, Gaza and Afghanistan.

Is there not here an admission of First World complicity in allowing such barbarities to prevail?

He sees it as a scar on the conscience of the world - a living in want which we could heal.

This address will go down as of enormous importance in raising the awareness of the whole world to think not only of self-interest but of the world's very survival.

Is not this emphasis on community, both local and global, a veiled critique of former Western military imperialism and more recent American economic imperialism?

Both were characterised by exploitative plunder of Third World resources and a blind promotion of corrupt regimes, thought of as supportive of Western interests.

The financing and promotion of so many corrupt regimes has finally climaxed in the establishment of bin Laden in Afghanistan as counterweights to Russia and Iran.

Blair has laid before us some bitter home truths.

R J Crowley Wordswor th Avenue, Roath, Cardiff