Diary – 23 July 2004

To Portcullis House at Westminster, to take part in a Reuters debate on war and journalism. I notice John Reid, the Prime Minister’s most prominent capo regime these days, lurking at the back. His minder tells me that ‘the boss would like a word’ but a division bell saves me from finding out whether I am to sleep with the fishes. John Redwood asks a question founded on the premise that ‘the UK fights too many wars’, and I notice several Tory heads bobbing up and down in the audience. No doubt about it: the Conservatives are completely rethinking their instinctively robust attitude to military intervention. On the other side of the political trenches, Bob Marshall-Andrews, the irrepressible left-wing silk, asks whether Tony Blair’s support for the Iraq war was intended to please newspaper proprietors. I doubt it: as far as I can see, the PM was only worried about the Great Proprietor in the Sky.