A basic understanding of human nature and simple logic should be enough for anyone (everyone?) to arrive at the same conclusions. The childishly transparent evasion of certain things is surely enough - namely, the refusal to allow investigation into the use made by the Government of the available intelligence and why all the caveats and qualifications were removed from it.

In most courts of law, the refusal to answer certain questions would instantly trigger alarm bells and further investigation would follow. In this case, this has not happened, mainly because the man in the dock "outranks" the courts and forces them to admit that it is right and proper that no further investigation should follow. This obviously suffices to clear the conscience of a man who seems to have lost touch with reality (or rather who refuses to admit he is fallible); no-one has proved me wrong, ergo I must be right (where have I heard that argument before!?!) Obviously, however, it doesn’t satisfy the country in the same way, but then the country doesn’t matter; Tony is still confident that the lack of credible opposition will still win him the day, regardless of how the country perceives him personally.

The biggest shame is that our outdated political system does not allow us to vote directly for the PM - if it did, I’m sure Labour could confidently expect to win the next election with another man at the helm. Who is immaterial. Personally I care little for politics and would happily go along with whichever government was in power, as long as they didn’t blatantly lie to the country to take us to war. As I’ve said before, the suspicion of dishonesty at the highest levels of government (Right Honourable, indeed!) over a matter which on the surface seemed cut and dried leads to suspicion and mistrust over every other issue and the motives and real truths behind them.

I spent a fair amount of time - in a previous life - learning how to detect liars, how to rapidly assess personality and how to test the validity of my assumptions. We also used other ‘tried and tested’ methods to check our ‘rapid assessment’ techniques.

from what I see both TB and GWB know that they are lying and are covering up as best they can- but they need more training in covering the signs.

From where I sit I’m eagerly awaiting the moment when "truth will out".

People who want respect must first learn to respect others. That sentiment towards Blair has been and continues to be echoed throughout the party - his lack of consultation with the Labor party members on so many issues over the last seven years, the ‘presidential’ (there’s nothing ‘presidential’ about it, IMO, but hey) method of his governance, the informal and off-the-cuff use of the cabinet, etc…

Blair wants to be P.T. Barnum; his faithful the suckers, apparently, born every minute. He runs this almost mystical circus as ringleader - and as the crowds, over time, fail to turn out, is the only one in the position to take the blame for the demise of that circus.

There’s no point in apologising to the Cult of Personality that the Labor party lives under; the Labor party knows it, has known it all along, and actively chooses it time and time again. Sooner or later, the circus-goers will grow up, the circus will lose its magic, and someone else will step in with something different to entertain the crowds. Right now, Labor is doing a poor job of making themselves that someone else, but at least they can see that the circus no longer holds the sway over the people it once did.

*for similarly minded politico-nerds, I only found out by accident that a new series of TWW started on E4 last night.