Richard Ingrams:

I pointed out last week how Mr Blair had been publicly humiliated when he appeared on Channel 5 to answer questions from members of the public. One young man asked him how, in view of all the disastrous consequences of the Iraqi invasion, including thousands of deaths, he was able to sleep at night.

My colleague Andrew Rawnsley, however, saw it in a different light. Was it not possible, he asked, that Blair’s humiliation was something that had been deliberately encouraged by Alastair Campbell and his fellow spin doctors? The idea would be that the public, when seeing the Prime Minister under fire from all quarters, would feel sympathy welling up and thus be more likely to vote Labour come the general election than they were before.

An interesting theory, but I doubt this is the case. People want a strong leader who can stand the heat, not someone who looks, as Kirsty pointed out, like he’s being tortured. Still, I’m no political strategist, and who can say what Campbell and Co are up too?

Tony Blair risks becoming an electoral liability, according to government ministers as the Prime Minister faces fresh accusations that his ‘presidential style’ is starting to affect Labour’s support.

If it’s taken them this long to work it out, I rather suggest that Mr Blair should get some new aides.

Another Blairite minister admitted he had been taken aback by the hostility to the leader on the doorsteps: ‘There are people shouting “if you get rid of Blair we’ll vote Labour”, although I think a lot of that is bluff.’

They were surprised at this? Have they no idea whatsoever about what’s going on in this country? Tony Blair is deeply unpopular with many, many people.

‘Is Tony less popular than he was eight years ago? … yes. Does that mean he’s no longer an asset? No, he remains a huge asset.’

This ‘senior strategist’ has completely lost his or her marbles if they think that Mr Blair is an assest through his popularity. There are precious few people who like Mr Blair (though I admit there are still some). But he is, by no means, a ‘huge asset’ to his party. If Gordon Brown were currently at the helm, as I’ve said before, the Labour party would win the next election with a huge majority. But it’s a bit late, now.

This is the kind of area in which Labour shine. If only they had Gordon Brown at the helm, they could easily storm the next general election, where the latest FT Poll put them at a two-figure majority – very good in most circumstances, but a big drop for Mr Blair. The Conservatives are doing some serious catch-up work – only a two point difference now – which is obviously good for my wish of a close-run thing, with no party having a very large majority.

Transcripts of evidence given in private by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, to an official inquiry suggest that the crucial advice on the legality of war, presented to parliament in his name, was written for him by two of Tony Blair’s closest allies.

The document, seen by the Guardian, reveals the attorney general’s private exchanges with Lord Butler during the course of his inquiry into the use of intelligence in the run-up to war against Iraq.
In them, the attorney general suggests his parliamentary statement giving legal backing to Britain’s participation in the invasion was “set out” by Charles Falconer, then Home Office minister, and Baroness Morgan, the prime minister’s director of political-government relations.

In apparent contradiction to his Butler evidence, the attorney general yesterday sought to deny that 10 Downing Street had any influence over his decisive statement.

“It is nonsense to suggest that No 10 wrote the statement,” he said.

So was he lying under oath or to the public? And doesn’t either mean that he should resign?

Shouldn’t Blair apologise for interfering where no politican should? And do we really want to re-elect somebody who encourages and partakes in this sort of behaviour?

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, warned less than two weeks before the invasion of Iraq that military action could be ruled illegal.

The government was so concerned that it might be prosecuted it set up a team of lawyers to prepare for legal action in an international court.

And a parliamentary answer issued days before the war in the name of Lord Goldsmith – but presented by ministers as his official opinion before the crucial Commons vote – was drawn up in Downing Street, not in the attorney general’s chambers.

This shouldn’t play well for Mr Blair, but it probably won’t make much difference in the long run. Nobody trusts what he has to say over Iraq, and facts like these shouldn’t make much difference to the general election result.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said the government’s position had been seriously undermined. “The substance of the attorney general’s advice, and the process by which it was partially published, simply do not stand up to scrutiny,” he said.

Sir Menzies added: “The issue is all the more serious since the government motion passed by the House of Commons on March 18 2003, endorsing military action against Iraq, was expressly based on that advice.”

He continued: “The public interest, which the government claims justifies non-publication of the whole of the advice, can only be served now by the fullest disclosure.”

I don’t really see how publishing the advice would serve the public interest, but I think that hiding it is against the public interest. So, in that sense, I think Mr Blair should come clean and publish the full advice. But he almost certainly won’t.

It’s almost at the stage where we can say ‘another day, another poll, but at least this one contains some good news: The gap is closing between the Conservatives and Labour, and hence Labour’s potential majority is beginning to slide. Why Michael Howard is getting such good ratings when his policies are so abhorrent is beyond me, but since it’s working in my favour right now I’m not going to complain. Once the campaign starts and the Lib Dems get a bit of a boost, we could easily see a rough three-way split in the popular vote, which I personally think would make the kind of Parliament which is needed right now.

This election certainly seems to be getting interesting as time goes by now, after that brief period where it seemed that nothing was happening and that Labour were going to walk this election with a huge majority and not much of a challenge.

Interesting, too, to see that floating voters (I do dislike that term) greatly prefer Gordon Brown. There’s no way Mr Blair could survive anything near a full third term if he’s seen as doing great damage by leading the party into a less than hugely successful general election, so we might well see him resigning sooner rather than later – though he’ll doubtless put it down to his health.

It will be fascinating to see how this all plays out over the coming weeks.

It’s actually worrying how true this is. And it made me smile.

All we need now is to elect me as leader of the Conservative party. I’m not a Conservative, but Blair’s not a Labourite and that didn’t make much difference. I’d soon beat some sense into Mr Blair. Mr Howard does a reasonable job, until he decides to go into self-destruct mode, annoucing silly populist policies. I’d be much better. And my surname fits.

I don’t agree with most things on the Backing Blair website, but this made me smile.

For balance’s sake, this didn’t:

Why don’t you f*ck off and apologise for Iraq you tw*t?

Well, maybe just a little.

Why is it that mud thrown at Labour rarely sticks (at least according to the polls), whereas the distinctly lower-quality mud thrown at the Conservatives seems to have super-glue-like properties?

If someone said that the Conservatives wanted to raise countil tax by 4.4%, their poll ratings would drop in an instant. Even more than they already have. But the government have been raising Council Tax for years, it’s clear it’ll happen again, and yet their ratings are on the up-and-up. The Lib Dems want to change the system altogether, and yet nobody seems to hear their shouts.

My media sources tell me that an Independent/NOP poll published tomorrow will show the Conservatives slipping to down to just 30% – and Labour up to 42%. Which is, frankly, scary. Even the Lib Dems are down three points on this one.

The only questionably good news is that only 55% said they were certain to vote, and a low turnout would almost certainly be bad for Labour. But, frankly, when they’re twelve points ahead it’s not likely to make anywhere near enough of a difference. It could make some impact though, particularly if all the other polling data is correct in saying that the Conservatives are ten points ahead of Labour in turnout – that’s a long way in front.

I just can’t see what the Labour party have done to court voters even further since the last poll I looked at. But they must have done something, and it’s looking increasingly certain that Labour are going to win the General Election by a fair margin. So please try to stop them.