Gordon can`t win

I`m going to do the strangest of things and come to the defence of Gordon Brown...believe me I`m no happier about this than you are.

Brown, as PM, gave into the pressure that was growing for a number of years for an inquiry to be held into the UK’s involvement in the Iraq war. When he first mooted this in the summer it was his intention that the inquiry be held in private. It quickly became obvious that this was an untenable position and minds were changed so that the inquiry would be held in public.

Now it seems that some of Brown’s own ministers are complaining about the impact that the inquiry will have on their parties electoral fortunes at the Westminster election.

Some are these Labour Ministers are briefing that the inquiry is opening a can of worms and will only grow in the public consciousness – I would agree. Revelations have already been made at the inquiry and the Indy has reported that “There were calls for the immediate publication of the legal advice on the invasion, after new claims that Lord Goldsmith, when he was Attorney General, told Mr Blair eight months before the conflict that it was illegal under international law to depose Saddam Hussein. His July 2002 letter is believed to have been submitted to the Chilcot inquiry, and both Mr Blair and Lord Goldsmith are likely to be asked about it.

Such revelations, the Labour Ministers suppose, will hurt them and help the anti-war parties. This may be the case but there is something deeper that these Labour Ministers should consider – holding the inquiry was the right thing to do.

So while I may consider Brown to be generally pretty useless and a lame duck Prime Minister he was right to hold the inquiry (however reluctant he was for it to go ahead in public). As Gloria Stein once said ‘the truth will set you free, but first it’ll piss you off’.