Tony blair

Tony Blair was hauled up in front of the sparsely-attended Foreign Affairs select committee today for a grilling about his links to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi — particularly around the time of the 2011 uprising. The former prime minister said he met with Gaddafi 'once or twice' because 'it was important to bring them in from the cold'. If Britain hadn’t engaged with the regime, Blair said it would be 'continuing to sponsor terrorism, was continuing to develop chemical and nuclear weapons and would have remained isolated in the international community'.

All wings of the Labour Party which support the notion of the Labour Party as a Party aspiring to govern, rather than as a fringe protest movement agree on the tragedy of the Labour Party’s current position. But even within that governing tendency, there is disagreement about the last Labour Government, what it stood for and what it should be proud of. The moral dimension of Labour tradition has always been very strong, encapsulated in the phrase that the Labour Party owed more to Methodism than to Marx.

So, it turns out that the SNP weren’t that bothered about the plight of foxes after all. Back in July, you might remember, David Cameron was forced to backtrack on his plan for a parliamentary vote on relaxing the hunting ban, after the SNP decided to vote against any changes. This, of course, came after Nicola Sturgeon wrote in February: ‘the SNP have a long-standing position of not voting on matters that purely affect England — such as fox hunting south of the border, for example — and we stand by that.

I was against the Iraq War. And I’ve been against Tony Blair ever since I first clapped eyes on his moisturised, illiberal countenance, all teeth and no soul. (In 1996 I was standing on street corners selling a magazine that said ‘Tony Blearghh!’ on its cover, while every other lefty was hailing him a messiah come to save us from Toryism.) Yet I don’t like the obsession with making Blair repent and weep and whip himself for what happened in Iraq. It’s ugly, and even worse it’s wrong: Blair doesn’t bear sole responsibility for that war.

The campaign for Britain to remain in the EU, now titled ‘Britain Stronger in Europe’, is launching today with a swish video and scary speech. Sir Stuart Rose, the former CEO of Marks and Spencer, will claim say that every Briton is £450 better off thanks to our EU membership — a claim the Leave camps will undoubtedly counter with their own figures. And just in case you weren't sure, Rose says 'the choice facing us in this referendum is the biggest in a generation'. But what is most notable is Rose’s patriotic language. He will say: 'To claim that the patriotic course for Britain is to retreat, withdraw and become inward looking is to misunderstand who we are as a nation.

Party conference season is the most pointless waste of money, time and liver quality ever devised. I attended these sweaty, drunken gatherings for ten years during my newspaper-editor days and achieved nothing constructive other than clarity over which is the best way to treat a monstrous hangover. (Answer: my late grandmother’s recipe of vine tomatoes on toast, laden with thick Marmite and gargantuan grinds from a pepper mill.) But they were fun, so long as I adhered to the golden rule: always leave the bar before 2 a.m., thus avoiding the moment when enough alcohol emboldens other delegates, and indeed one’s own staff, to tell you what they really think of you.

On religion, Jeremy Corbyn is interestingly moderate, circumspect — not the angry atheist you might expect. In a recent interview with the Christian magazine Third Way, he said his upbringing was quite religious: his mother was a ‘Bible-reading agnostic’ and his father a believer, and he went to a Christian school. ‘At what point did you decide that it wasn’t for you?’ he was asked. He replied very carefully, even challenging the premise of the question: ‘I’m not anti-religious at all. Not at all… I find religion very interesting. I find the power of faith very interesting. I have friends who are very strongly atheist and wouldn’t have anything to do with any faith, but I take a much more relaxed view of it.

Hats off to John McDonnell. We've all been fretting about how the Corbyn gang would cope against the media slick Tories. We all think that, despite the appeal of conviction politics, a shadow chancellor such as McDonnell will be eaten alive by the Tory front bench. John McDonnell's performance on BBC Question Time last night suggested otherwise. Question Time is a good test for politicians: they have to look and sound passionate while saying nothing much at all. McDonnell did exactly that, and with gusto. He masterfully shrugged off his 'joke' about killing Margaret Thatcher. When asked about his support for the IRA, he managed almost simultaneously to apologise and to take credit for bringing peace to Northern Ireland.

Today is the first real test of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. At midday, it’s assumed he will take his place on the front bench for his first session of Prime Minister’s Questions with David Cameron. PMQs is the central event of the political week and today’s session is even more anticipated than usual. For the first time, the Tories have the opportunity to put their ‘security’ concerns directly at the new opposition leader — will they stick? Will Corbyn brush them off or fail to effectively respond? There is also a challenge for the Prime Minister because he is dealing with such an unknown quantity. Will Cameron be serious and respectful, or punchy and loud? His ‘Flashman’ persona is unlikely to score any points against Corbyn.