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Hands up---I didn't believe Blair would be so cavalier to commit to a war without proof of WMD. That proof didn't exist, I was taken in by that "honest, decent Christian" act, and he will reap what he's sown. It may not bother Bush the hundreds of American troops dying out there; unlike Clinton and Reagan, he's not at the airport to meet the returning coffins. But I wonder how Blair's Christian conscience copes with the knowledge that a decision by him has cost scores of British lives, made the citizens of this island a target for every Islamic terrorist on the planet, and that a few of his own troops have made ordinary Muslims hate us with a vengeance. If there is a God sitting in judgment on us all, Tone must be really looking forward to giving his side of the story.

After all these years of cynicism of politicias, I can still get taken in by a plausible actor. Depressing isn't the word.

I apologise for believing this flim-flam man, and not sticking to my normal practice of assuming a politician is lying so long as his lips move.

Sharp enough to get to the top of the tree without having daddy preparing the way for him. In the final analysis I think Blair will turn out to have been as ruthless as Thatcher, but trying to put a caring face on at the time. Someone who surrounds himself with incompetent yes men (Hoon, Straw, Blunkett) to make himself look better is brighter than you give him credit for.

Bear in mind too, that for all his God-fearing ways and his slightly hippie youth, he trained as a lawyer, became a barrister (both professions synonamous with plausible lying) before seeking power as a politician. Most of them take the law route to power.

Again, I think you underestimate him. The reason Cook and Short were there (and the reason why Brown and Prescott still are) was to give it a semblence of being a wide church, taking in views from both sides of the Labour Party. As for the not understanding questions from reporters, I think what he's doing is giving them a chance to rethink their question and not make it seem as though his behaviour/leadership/decision-making is under question.

Politics---and much else in society these days---is all sound bites.

I'm not much for predictions (more Mystic Smeg than Nostradamus), but I think Tone will have gone by this time next year---before there is a general election. Iraq won't leave him alone; it'll hang around his neck like an albatross.

Oh, and the next series of Big Brother will be won by an annoying person.

"Blair is not the sharpest tool in the box either".
Well, he's certainly a tool.
I'm with C on this one- I think he's very bright, and thus either incredibly cynical and hypocritical, or (and this I think when I catch that mad gleam in his eye) totally stark raving, can I eat your duck missus, bonkers megalomaniacal.

There's some truth in the Blur/Howard comparison- Tone is a poor parliamentarian against Howie.
But this is in the recent tradition of Tory leaders who perform well in the Commons debating-circle, but fail to inspire the electorate personally or politically.
The British don't seem to like their politicans TOO clever........Thatcher ws wise enough to make a strong selling-point of her 'ordinariness'.