As Nick Robinson, political editor of Independent Television News, put it in a two-way for the ITV Evening News, Parliament is more pro-war than the country; the Government is more pro-war than Parliament and the Prime Minister is more pro-war than the Government.

Yet it is the Prime Minister Tony Blair who is never off the news, even when he has nothing new to say. The usual suspects are wheeled on time and again.

In terms of a news ‘line’, for example, his visit to Rome for an audience with the Pope was thin gruel indeed; meanwhile, the lead story in the newspapers as well as on TV and radio was that he was expected to reiterate what he had said before. Across the Atlantic, of course, the US President is even more pro-war than the PM, and he too is a regular on UK screens, whether he says anything different or not. Another day, another two-way: Jane Hill, presenter on BBC digital channel News 24, turning to Nick Bryant in Washington with the observation that listening to the White House was “like Groundhog Day at the moment”.