Considerable difficulties

Funny how things come around to bite you. Just the other day, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Whosit were questioning Gordon’s grip on things. Today, Hoon faced the Iraq Inquiry to answer questions on his cabinet role in the run-up to to the 2003 invasion.

Prior to his appearance, copies of correspondence between the former defence secretary and [then] attorney-general Lord Goldsmith were helpfully made available. The letters show that Goldsmith told Hoon in March 2002 – nearly a year before the war began – that he had put him "in a difficult position" by claiming in an interview that Britain would be entitled to use force without a specific UN resolution and there was no legal necessity to go back to the United Nations.

Some observers drew several parallels of Hoon’s performance today at the inquiry with the interview of eight years ago in that he succeeded in talking a lot whist saying very little – although he did concede that extra supplies of enhanced body armour for troops were not regarded as a top priority.

Perhaps it was his training as a barrister, but his repertoire of guarded answers made him look decidedly shifty. He looked especially uncomfortable when stating he did not think it was "appropriate" in March 2003 for Goldsmith's legal arguments to be debated by the whole cabinet even though he had earlier claimed that, if Goldsmith had said there was no basis for war, there would have been no military action.

They must have loved it over at No 10.

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(PLR)