Families snubbed as Blair attends war memorial unveiling

Families of British servicemen and women killed on duty have told of their anger at Tony Blair being invited to a war memorial unveiling.

The Queen is today unveiling a memorial to the 300,000 Britons who served in the first and second Gulf wars and in Afghanistan, of whom 680 lost their lives, the Daily Mail reports.

Blair was prime minister when Britain went into Afghanistan in 2001 and into Iraq in 2003.

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His inclusion on the 2,500-person guest list sparked controversy this week after a number of relatives of fallen soldiers, sailors and airmen said they had not been invited.

It led to a last-minute turn around by the Ministry of Defence, which extended the invitation to any bereaved families who wished to attend the event.

Bob Wright, whose son Corporal Mark Wright, 27, died in Afghanistan in 2006, told the Daily Mail: “Tony Blair is the man that started the ball rolling and we lost a lot of lives needlessly because of him. You would not have expected him to have been invited.”

Today will see the unveiling of the memorial in the Victoria Embankment Gardens in London.

It was designed by artist Paul Day, who also created the bronze statue of a couple embracing at St Pancras railway station.