The hot news at the moment is that Tony Blair was informed that going to war against Iraq would heighten the terrorist threat against the UK, yet not only failed to pass this on to Parliament, but gave precisely opposite information to the country as a whole.

Now, there are two aspects to this. The first is fairly simple, and that is this: Surely it's blindingly obvious that since the main terrorist threat to the UK emanates from the Middle East, swinging your military dick around the region isn't going to pacify the locals. Who in their right mind actually believed that invading Iraq was a good way to make us less of a terrorist target? The cited threat from Iraq was one of nuclear strike (speaking of which, have you seen those weapons yet? No? Oh well, keep on looking - try behind the sofa), not one of terrorism. Granted, Baghdad was seen as a bit of a haven for terrorists, but I doubt they were still sitting around having tea and toast as the American tanks rolled into town.

"Abdul! American tanks have arrived! Baghdad is falling! We never saw them coming!"
"Oh fuck! I knew I should have watched CNN!"

Plainly ridiculous. Of course invading the Middle East is going to upset the Middle East. Duh. Didn't we learn that in 1939? A new empire invades our neighbours and seeks to expand itself in the region, so we fought them... and now what is the American Empire doing in the Middle East? Ah yes. Well, it's ok, the Americans haven't actually started any anti-Semitic gassing yet (we'll brush over the allegations of genetically-targeted chemical weapons), so let's grab a Coke and jump on the back of a tank.

Right then - the second aspect. Tony Blair knew this most obvious of facts, because it took the Joint Intelligence Committee to tell him. Well done. But he seemed to keep a bit schtum about it.

The interesting thing was on the Today programme this morning, where the Secretary of State, John Reid, defended Mr. Blair's decision. According to him, it was entirely defensible by the fact that Mr. Blair "exercised his judgement" in analysing the intelligence reports before briefing Parliament. Mr. Reid went on to say that he is entitled to do this because "he is the Prime Minister."

So it seems that even the cabinet now no longer follows the tradition of British politics. Stop me if I'm getting a little technical here, but the elected body which represents the British people is the House of Commons. Not just the Prime Minister.

But of course, if he'd passed on the intelligence report to the Commons, that information would have been in the public domain, and one of Tony's main arguments for war would have been null and void.

So quite clearly there are other motives for war which President Blair is not revealing to us. Otherwise why hide the facts, when quite clearly the population was at least marginally against military action?

David Kelly's death, whilst an entirely unpleasant event in itself, may well turn out to be far from in vain. For those who didn't realise it months ago, this is the tip of an unpleasant iceberg. May it sink the Good Ship Tony.