Well, being pulled before the Chilcot inquiry is a bit like being mauled by a sock puppet. They’re toothless. They’re wooly. They’re utterly feeble. It’s a panel of pussycats. And they were deliberately chosen by the government for that very purpose. It’s the prime minister’s office which sets the terms of reference for inquiries in the UK and which chooses the members of the inquiry panel. So it’s rather like someone, a criminal suspect who’s up before the court for murder, for example, who says, “Well, actually, I don’t want to be tried for murder. I’d rather be tried for shoplifting. And I’d like to appoint the judge and the jury for that trial.” It’s a ridiculous process, which would never be tolerated in the United States or, indeed, in any nation which has got a constitution. But in the UK, where we don’t have a written constitution and where there are no practical limits to the prime minister’s power, they can get away with it.

Well, that’s true. Of course, that is true. And it’s about time that something did happen. But hopefully it wouldn’t be like this. It would be a proper American inquiry, which has got some teeth, which is not appointed by the very people who were responsible for the thing that’s being inquired into, and where there’s a chance of them actually getting to the truth of the matter, rather than, as they did with Tony Blair, throw out these complete lobs to him, these hospital passes which anybody could catch, where he could just bat them away incredibly easily without breaking into a sweat at all.

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