06/07/2016 The Papers

let nobody down at all. That is it from us. Coming up next, The Papers.

Hello. Welcome to our look ahead to what the papers will bring us

tomorrow. I'm joined by Lance Price, political commentator and the

political commentator at the Evening Standard. Let's look at the front

pages. We can start with the FT. They read on the Chilcot report.

They also have a story about French attempts to lure highly paid bankers

from the UK after Brexit. Unsurprisingly, the Metro leads with

the Chilcot report, focusing on Tony Blair's defence of his decision to

invade Iraq. The Telegraph has a similar front

page, with the former Prime Minister saying, I would take the same

decision. The Times labels the fallout from the Chilcot report as

Blair's Private War. The Mirror puts Blair and George Bush side-by-side

on its front page. The Guardian is quoting Blair's memo

of support to President Bush in the lead up to the Iraq war. The Express

also focuses on Mr Blair's insistence that he would go to war

again. Here is the Daily Mail. They go as far as to call Tony Blair a

monster of the allusion. Let's begin, and as we can see from that

run through, clearly, one story is very big, unsurprisingly. Lance,

let's start with you, because you'd knew Tony Blair very well. The

Mirror among others choosing to focus on these memos that have been

declassified as part of the enquiry, particularly the relationship

between Tony Blair and George W Bush. I think this is probably what

people were most looking for from the report, what it would say about

whether or not Tony Blair and George Bush had made an irrevocable

decision months ahead of when any announcement was made to go to war.

And the nearest you get to that is this memo, which we hadn't seen

before, in which Tony Blair says, I'll be with you, whatever. Which

is, as a quote, pretty firm sounding. It goes on to say all the

difficulties involved in what is coming up. It also puts a lot of

pressure on Bush to go for the United Nations option. Actually, if

you take the memo in the Browns, I don't think it amounts to an

absolute firm and definite commitment that there would be war.

People were looking for this to be the smoking gun. As Lance points

out, the memo runs to several pages. I don't think anyone will really

have had their opinions changed about Tony Blair or the decision to

go to war in Iraq as a result of the Chilcot enquiry. I think that those

people who at the start of the day were very antiglare and --

anti-Blair will feel that Chilcot's opening remarks on publishing the

report were very damning of the former Prime Minister, but equally,

Tony Blair's superlative is an Tony Blair himself, Alistair Campbell,

one of your former colleagues wrote a blog saying that Chilcot

vindicated him because he did not live. I think very few people would

have had their opinions changed by this. The memos were the most

interesting part in that some of us were looking for some sort of secret

deal that was signed up to buy Tony Blair with George Bush, and there

was nothing that was found by Chilcot that suggested a smoking

gun, as Lance says. It was interesting in terms of what it

showed us about the relationships, nevertheless, between the two men,

and the psychological insight into Tony Blair and how he felt about

George Bush. Chilcot picked up on that when he talked about how one of

the lessons that could be learned was how we dealt with our allies,

notably the US, UK relationship, and reminding his audience that Britain

and the United States had a very long and close relationship that

could withstand occasionally not having absolutely unconditional

support, and suggesting that, in future, leaders might want to bear

that in mind. Tony Blair obviously always had the reputation of always

being George Bush's poodle. Some would say, unfairly. Many people,

having read those memos today will think he went a bit too far and was

overconfident. Chilcot said that as well. He was trying to get as close

as he could to George W Bush in order to be able to influence him,

and the arguments will continue to go on, even after the Chilcot

report, about whether he stood any real prospect of doing that. But it

is pretty clear, and Chilcot credits him with that, that he certainly

tried to soften George W Bush and to push in the diplomatic direction for

as long as he could. The other issue that divides people, and it is

covered in the Times, is Tony Blair's internal struggle. Was there

one? A lot of people, today, looking at the press conference, people who

never liked Blair wanted to go to war were saying that those were

crocodile tears. Other people, saying that Blair has been crushed

and there has been a personal cost. Crushed is probably too strong a

word, but he has been deeply affected by the impact of the war

and how it went wrong. When he says that he felt it very personally and

thinks about it every single day, I am sure he is sincere. How could he

not? It hangs over his reputation, which of course, he cares about,

like all politicians. It makes it difficult for people to form a

balanced judgment about him as a prime minister. His private war goes

to the heart of whether or not it was one man's decision and whether

or not he was circumventing Cabinet Government. He was then using every

power of persuasion that he had at his disposal to almost sort of force

Parliament and public opinion to go with him. I think there is a little

rewriting of history there. There was an awful lot of discussion in

Cabinet, as many of his Cabinet colleagues have been saying today.

And there was a full debate in parliament, a full debate in public,

and people forget now, with hindsight, that the polls were

suggesting that the majority of the British public were in favour of the

action, and if you look at the front pages of the newspapers, including

the Daily Mail, they were strongly in favour then and they have changed

their children. The point Tony Blair made today, the decision rested with

him alone. Even if he consulted. Whatever the rights and wrongs of

the decision that he came to, his main mission was to try to persuade

people and issue a plea to people to say, don't say I am -- I am a liar

and I miss lead you. It was none of those things. You might disagree

with why I did it, and he conceded that there were many problems, and

in specific areas, he apologised for specific problems that arose that

could have been avoided, but the bottom line for him is: I am the

decision-makers and I needed to make a decision. Ultimately, I would make

the same decision again, knowing the fact that I knew at that point.

There is an interesting hypothetical question, which is whether a

different Labour Party Prime Minister would have made a different

decision, faced with the same evidence. We are short on time. The

Daily Telegraph also has Chilcot, but Pippa, just to finish off, if we

go down to the bottom, it is the Tory leadership contest, and a

suggestion of tactical voting ahead. An e-mail from Nick Bowles, Michael

Gove's campaign manager, suggesting people might like to vote for

Michael Gove in order to stop Andrea Leadsom. Michael Gove is prepared to

take a thrashing from trees AFP gets down to the last two, and we will

find out who those are tomorrow night. -- a thrashing from two Reza

may -- from Theresa May. Yellow light it shows they are a

Machiavellian bunch, the Tories. Thank you very much. We will have

more later. Thanks to Lance and pepper. Time now for a look at the

weather. --