Blair at Chilcot - what do we think?

So, lunchtime, thus far. Tony Blair is half way through his evidence to the Chilcot inquiry.

There's not much that we haven't heard ad nausea. There was never likely to be.

There's a sense of familiarity with the media, competing channels trying to exaggerate the protests against Blair.

In fairness to Sky News, they're now interviewing someone from the Iraqi exile community who states she feels the war was just and she described the war as 'Iraqi liberation'.

A couple of personal thoughts:

Blair says everything changed in judgments of Saddam - both in the U.S. and here - as a result of 9/11. Well, as there are widespread conspiracy claims about 9/11 itself, maybe it's time we had a full public inquiry into 9/11 in this country, the UK. And, as we all know, Saddam and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 - we know that already.

Our elected Prime Minister, Tony Blair, still has charm and charisma. Sure, you don't feel you're getting the full picture from him but... compare him to Gordon Brown. They're both into the Iraq question up to their necks, so if we *HAD* to choose between the two, it would be the democratically elected Tony Blair over the unelected and unwanted Gordon, anytime.

What Tony Blair is not - from what we know in public anyway (!) - is implicated in: the banker bailout scandal, the swine flu scandal, and the 'man made global warming' scandal. Gordon Brown is up to his neck in all of those. And we'd quite like full public inquiries on all of those topics, too.

And the questions that we would like to ask Tony Blair centre on what he REALLY knows about what happened to Diana, Princess of Wales in the twelve months leading up to her death - when her focus was on the humanitarian aspect of anti-personnel landmines in Angola, Bosnia and around the world.

Now that was the inquest that we should have had on Diana, not the 'Did she love Dodi?' scandal sheet crap that we were actually treated to (insulted by).

Mike Mansfield QC tried to get us the inquest Diana should have been given, but it seems that the "inquest" gave us a few clues which were placed around for us all to piece together should we choose to.

And that's probably how this Chilcot inquiry is going to end. Come on, we're really not going to learn much more new. There'll be no smoking gun.

So, what you'd decided before it had begun will no doubt still be your opinion when it is all over.

Mid-afternoon update: Sky News reporter has just described this as 'Tony Blair 1-0 The Panel' - sounds about right, based on our perception of what we're seeing.

End of day summary: Don't know what anyone was expecting out of this. They didn't nickname Tony Blair 'Teflon Tony' for nothing. He is one of the most accomplished orators and media performers of the modern time. Even though we have the benefit of hindsight on Iraq, there's something about Tony Blair that makes you want to listen to him and makes you want to believe him. Away from the TV screen, one can build up negative appraisals of him. Stick him on the stage and it's very difficult to work up harsh hostility towards him. At the end of the day, he is a winner. Unlike poor Gordon. And therein lies what we've really learned from Blair's appearance and performance today. Tony Blair never lost a General Election as Labour leader, Gordon Brown will never win one. And the Labour Party wouldn't even risk the chance of seeing if Gordon Brown could even win an election for his own party leadership. Some people are winners, some are losers. Tony Blair is one, Gordon Brown the t'other. Hey ho.