But its sincerity is very deftly pitched: “It is important I set out what I believe to be (drop voice almost to inaudibility) right.” What makes this characterisation rare is that, for it to work, the Prime Minister has to be telling the truth. As long as he confined himself to how hard he had been working to secure the UN’s co-operation he was unassailable.Labour’s Derek Foster laid it on thick; too thick. The Prime Minister’s heroic efforts with the UN enjoyed the overwhelming support of all sides of the House, he said. That brought forward a muted round of hear-hears, with one false treble. It sounded very half-hearted and was followed by embarrassed laughter.Labour’s Tony Wright normally gives us a shimmering gong but very little dinner; yesterday, he presented us with soup to nuts.

He read a 1998 letter signed by the current American hawks calling for regime change in Iraq – with no mention of weapons of mass destruction, moral imperatives, human rights, or terrorists. “This is the smoking gun!” he said, and he was clearly right. Rumsfeld et alii have been planning this attack for years, the current rationale is incidental.Mr Blair eclipsed the point by saying he was not responsible for what other administrations said; he couldn’t even control what some people in his own administration were saying. Warm, companionable laughter filled the House.John Randall (anti-war Tory who resigned as a whip) asked to see the advice the Attorney General had given the Government. He said it would help persuade his constituents war was right.

Mr Blair said: “It is not the convention to publish the advice. It is the convention to say we have a legal basis for action.” I bet it is, matey! The rumour is the Attorney General’s advice has been negative. So Mr Randall’s air force constituents could be tried for war crimes in the International Court we’ve signed up to. As could Mr Blair.simoncarr75 hotmail
More from Simon Carr. You don’t have to like a single thing about Donald Rumsfeld to recognise he is a an interesting and unusual politician. While most people in his line swiftly learn the art of self-censorship, Rumsfeld’s mouth is directly connected to his brain.

It’s a big part of why he is a rather effective communicator. Most politicians, asked a good question, will automatically say a good deal less than they know, just to be on the safe side. Rumsfeld tends to give a straight answer unless there is a very pressing and obvious reason not to. It may have been tactically unwise to exhibit – not least to Baghdad – problems at the core of the coalition. It was hardly helpful to Tony Blair to read that the US Defence Secretary was offering him an “exit route”. And it may have been very badly timed, hindering efforts to secure a second UN resolution today or tomorrow.But that doesn’t mean Mr Rumsfeld was necessarily fantasising. Is it possible that he had been warned that very day on a secure line by his British counterpart, Geoff Hoon, that this is where Britain and its Parliament might end up if there is no second resolution? Or, if not, that he had heard some other intelligence from London and, in response to a question at the press conference, laid out the situation as he understood it? And that the genuine shock at Number 10 on Tuesday evening wasn’t so much at what Mr Rumsfeld had said but at the fact he had spoken about it at all?For as soon as you think about it, you realise it would be extraordinary, not to say hugely, wilfully, irresponsible if the option of not sending British troops into combat in the absence a UN resolution were not at least being considered.