Airstrip One

The Revengers' Salad

There is a delicious irony that Blair, master of spin, has been undone by his own inability to stay "on-message". After claiming that a network of laboratories manufacturing weapons of mass destruction had been located, Blair was contradicted by Paul Bremer, the governor of Iraq, who stated that the information was false.

It was, he suggested, a 'red herring', probably put about by someone opposed to military action in Iraq who wanted to undermine the coalition.

'I don't know where those words come from but that is not what [ISG chief] David Kay has said,' he told ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme. 'It sounds like a bit of a red herring to me"

Now, Blair must have jumped the gun and is probably privy to more information than Bremer, as a Head of State. However, his search for public justification leads him into yet another public storm about weapons of mass destruction and the Hutton Report will be published soon.

Perhaps President Bush should issue Blair with a pager and scripted press releases...

(9.47, 28th December 2003)