BLAIR TELLS ALL

By RAY FLEMING ONE shouldn't judge a television programme until one has seen it but an exception to this rule may be The Blair Years, on BBC One tonight at 11.15pm (local time). The BBC is being coy about whether this is a single programme or a series but no matter because the main interest in it is certain to be what Mr Blair has to say about the Iraq war. According to David Aaronovitch, who interviews Mr Blair, what he says is: “The war? I believed in it, I believed in it then, I believe in it now.” There have always been critics of Tony Blair who claim that he is “unhinged”; the former MP and leading political columnist Matthew Parris has consistently put it even more strongly than that. Such views will be reinforced by Mr Blair's assertion that he still believes in the Iraq war. It will be particularly interesting to know why he still believes in it given that none of the reasons he advanced for starting it have proved to be valid. Will he be able to explain what has been gained by it and how the loss of American, British and Iraqi lives in it can be justified? Other “leaks” about the content of tonight's programme suggest it will show that President Bush went out his way to give Mr Blair the opportunity of withdrawing from the invasion when it proved impossible to get a second UN resolution authorising military action. Yet still the British prime minister went ahead.