:00:00. > :00:15.let nobody down at all. That is it from us. Coming up next, The Papers.
:00:16. > :00:21.Hello. Welcome to our look ahead to what the papers will bring us
:00:22. > :00:26.tomorrow. I'm joined by Lance Price, political commentator and the
:00:27. > :00:29.political commentator at the Evening Standard. Let's look at the front
:00:30. > :00:35.pages. We can start with the FT. They read on the Chilcot report.
:00:36. > :00:41.They also have a story about French attempts to lure highly paid bankers
:00:42. > :00:45.from the UK after Brexit. Unsurprisingly, the Metro leads with
:00:46. > :00:48.the Chilcot report, focusing on Tony Blair's defence of his decision to
:00:49. > :00:53.invade Iraq. The Telegraph has a similar front
:00:54. > :00:57.page, with the former Prime Minister saying, I would take the same
:00:58. > :01:02.decision. The Times labels the fallout from the Chilcot report as
:01:03. > :01:11.Blair's Private War. The Mirror puts Blair and George Bush side-by-side
:01:12. > :01:15.on its front page. The Guardian is quoting Blair's memo
:01:16. > :01:20.of support to President Bush in the lead up to the Iraq war. The Express
:01:21. > :01:25.also focuses on Mr Blair's insistence that he would go to war
:01:26. > :01:31.again. Here is the Daily Mail. They go as far as to call Tony Blair a
:01:32. > :01:36.monster of the allusion. Let's begin, and as we can see from that
:01:37. > :01:41.run through, clearly, one story is very big, unsurprisingly. Lance,
:01:42. > :01:45.let's start with you, because you'd knew Tony Blair very well. The
:01:46. > :01:50.Mirror among others choosing to focus on these memos that have been
:01:51. > :01:52.declassified as part of the enquiry, particularly the relationship
:01:53. > :01:58.between Tony Blair and George W Bush. I think this is probably what
:01:59. > :02:02.people were most looking for from the report, what it would say about
:02:03. > :02:06.whether or not Tony Blair and George Bush had made an irrevocable
:02:07. > :02:10.decision months ahead of when any announcement was made to go to war.
:02:11. > :02:15.And the nearest you get to that is this memo, which we hadn't seen
:02:16. > :02:22.before, in which Tony Blair says, I'll be with you, whatever. Which
:02:23. > :02:26.is, as a quote, pretty firm sounding. It goes on to say all the
:02:27. > :02:31.difficulties involved in what is coming up. It also puts a lot of
:02:32. > :02:37.pressure on Bush to go for the United Nations option. Actually, if
:02:38. > :02:39.you take the memo in the Browns, I don't think it amounts to an
:02:40. > :02:44.absolute firm and definite commitment that there would be war.
:02:45. > :02:50.People were looking for this to be the smoking gun. As Lance points
:02:51. > :02:54.out, the memo runs to several pages. I don't think anyone will really
:02:55. > :02:58.have had their opinions changed about Tony Blair or the decision to
:02:59. > :03:02.go to war in Iraq as a result of the Chilcot enquiry. I think that those
:03:03. > :03:13.people who at the start of the day were very antiglare and --
:03:14. > :03:17.anti-Blair will feel that Chilcot's opening remarks on publishing the
:03:18. > :03:22.report were very damning of the former Prime Minister, but equally,
:03:23. > :03:29.Tony Blair's superlative is an Tony Blair himself, Alistair Campbell,
:03:30. > :03:32.one of your former colleagues wrote a blog saying that Chilcot
:03:33. > :03:36.vindicated him because he did not live. I think very few people would
:03:37. > :03:42.have had their opinions changed by this. The memos were the most
:03:43. > :03:46.interesting part in that some of us were looking for some sort of secret
:03:47. > :03:51.deal that was signed up to buy Tony Blair with George Bush, and there
:03:52. > :03:56.was nothing that was found by Chilcot that suggested a smoking
:03:57. > :04:00.gun, as Lance says. It was interesting in terms of what it
:04:01. > :04:04.showed us about the relationships, nevertheless, between the two men,
:04:05. > :04:08.and the psychological insight into Tony Blair and how he felt about
:04:09. > :04:12.George Bush. Chilcot picked up on that when he talked about how one of
:04:13. > :04:18.the lessons that could be learned was how we dealt with our allies,
:04:19. > :04:22.notably the US, UK relationship, and reminding his audience that Britain
:04:23. > :04:26.and the United States had a very long and close relationship that
:04:27. > :04:29.could withstand occasionally not having absolutely unconditional
:04:30. > :04:35.support, and suggesting that, in future, leaders might want to bear
:04:36. > :04:41.that in mind. Tony Blair obviously always had the reputation of always
:04:42. > :04:46.being George Bush's poodle. Some would say, unfairly. Many people,
:04:47. > :04:52.having read those memos today will think he went a bit too far and was
:04:53. > :05:00.overconfident. Chilcot said that as well. He was trying to get as close
:05:01. > :05:04.as he could to George W Bush in order to be able to influence him,
:05:05. > :05:08.and the arguments will continue to go on, even after the Chilcot
:05:09. > :05:13.report, about whether he stood any real prospect of doing that. But it
:05:14. > :05:19.is pretty clear, and Chilcot credits him with that, that he certainly
:05:20. > :05:23.tried to soften George W Bush and to push in the diplomatic direction for
:05:24. > :05:30.as long as he could. The other issue that divides people, and it is
:05:31. > :05:34.covered in the Times, is Tony Blair's internal struggle. Was there
:05:35. > :05:40.one? A lot of people, today, looking at the press conference, people who
:05:41. > :05:48.never liked Blair wanted to go to war were saying that those were
:05:49. > :05:56.crocodile tears. Other people, saying that Blair has been crushed
:05:57. > :06:00.and there has been a personal cost. Crushed is probably too strong a
:06:01. > :06:06.word, but he has been deeply affected by the impact of the war
:06:07. > :06:11.and how it went wrong. When he says that he felt it very personally and
:06:12. > :06:17.thinks about it every single day, I am sure he is sincere. How could he
:06:18. > :06:24.not? It hangs over his reputation, which of course, he cares about,
:06:25. > :06:29.like all politicians. It makes it difficult for people to form a
:06:30. > :06:32.balanced judgment about him as a prime minister. His private war goes
:06:33. > :06:37.to the heart of whether or not it was one man's decision and whether
:06:38. > :06:42.or not he was circumventing Cabinet Government. He was then using every
:06:43. > :06:48.power of persuasion that he had at his disposal to almost sort of force
:06:49. > :06:52.Parliament and public opinion to go with him. I think there is a little
:06:53. > :06:56.rewriting of history there. There was an awful lot of discussion in
:06:57. > :07:03.Cabinet, as many of his Cabinet colleagues have been saying today.
:07:04. > :07:07.And there was a full debate in parliament, a full debate in public,
:07:08. > :07:11.and people forget now, with hindsight, that the polls were
:07:12. > :07:15.suggesting that the majority of the British public were in favour of the
:07:16. > :07:19.action, and if you look at the front pages of the newspapers, including
:07:20. > :07:23.the Daily Mail, they were strongly in favour then and they have changed
:07:24. > :07:30.their children. The point Tony Blair made today, the decision rested with
:07:31. > :07:35.him alone. Even if he consulted. Whatever the rights and wrongs of
:07:36. > :07:40.the decision that he came to, his main mission was to try to persuade
:07:41. > :07:46.people and issue a plea to people to say, don't say I am -- I am a liar
:07:47. > :07:51.and I miss lead you. It was none of those things. You might disagree
:07:52. > :07:56.with why I did it, and he conceded that there were many problems, and
:07:57. > :07:59.in specific areas, he apologised for specific problems that arose that
:08:00. > :08:04.could have been avoided, but the bottom line for him is: I am the
:08:05. > :08:10.decision-makers and I needed to make a decision. Ultimately, I would make
:08:11. > :08:16.the same decision again, knowing the fact that I knew at that point.
:08:17. > :08:20.There is an interesting hypothetical question, which is whether a
:08:21. > :08:24.different Labour Party Prime Minister would have made a different
:08:25. > :08:29.decision, faced with the same evidence. We are short on time. The
:08:30. > :08:35.Daily Telegraph also has Chilcot, but Pippa, just to finish off, if we
:08:36. > :08:41.go down to the bottom, it is the Tory leadership contest, and a
:08:42. > :08:45.suggestion of tactical voting ahead. An e-mail from Nick Bowles, Michael
:08:46. > :08:50.Gove's campaign manager, suggesting people might like to vote for
:08:51. > :08:57.Michael Gove in order to stop Andrea Leadsom. Michael Gove is prepared to
:08:58. > :09:00.take a thrashing from trees AFP gets down to the last two, and we will
:09:01. > :09:16.find out who those are tomorrow night. -- a thrashing from two Reza
:09:17. > :09:19.may -- from Theresa May. Yellow light it shows they are a
:09:20. > :09:23.Machiavellian bunch, the Tories. Thank you very much. We will have
:09:24. > :09:28.more later. Thanks to Lance and pepper. Time now for a look at the
:09:29. > :09:39.weather. --