Friday 29 January

It has been a horrible day, with alternating showers of rain and snow. The mercury, you won't be surprised to hear, has been hogging freezing for most of the day. Now that the sun has set, the clouds have cleared away. That'll always be the case. We'll get -4C tonight.

Over in London, former prime minister Tony Blair was apparently very worried about having to appear in front of the Chilcott Commission, which investigates the British government's role in the lead-up to the war in Iraq in 2003. Mr Blair appears to have been at variance with his cabinet colleagues. When they appeared in front of the commission, they mostly said that the invasion was justified to disarm Saddam Hussein and remove the threat of WMD (weapons of mass destruction). Mr Blair said the war had been launched to remove Saddam from power. This was actually the line taken by president George W. Bush in the aftermath of 9/11. The strange thing is that Saddam had no part to play in that atrocity, investigations have shown.

Yes, Saddam was a very nasty piece of work, and around one million people have died as a result of his actions as head of state in Iraq. I certainly did not rue his hanging, in December 2006. However, it is my stated position that George H. Bush (sic) should have proceeded to take out the Iraqi dictator in March 1991. At that time, American forces in Iraq at the end of the 1990/91 war, could easily have done so. George Bush senior was dissuaded from the idea by Arab leaders. So, George Bush junior decided to finish the job his daddy left him.

Iraq is less of a problem these days than Afghanistan. Nobody has ever subdued the tribes of that dustbowl, not the British, not the Soviets, and NATO won't either.