Brown might have paid for it, but this was clearly somebody else’s war

A kind of oily sheen has coated his voice, like an old-fashioned insurance salesman.

Such is his determination to be nice at all times that all emotion has now drained out of that low bass. I never thought I'd say it, but can we have Old Gordon back?

Baroness Prashar, whose wardrobe consists of generously-cut jackets in primary colours, was in one of her sterner moods and wearing a shade of punitive green only seen on Whitehall matrons.

Twenty-four Cabinet meetings, private talks with Tony Blair ... when, she wanted to know, did Mr Brown realise that the UK was committed to war? That is the kind of direct question the Prime Minister does not relish.

Mr Brown's approach to the Iraq war is as follows. It was Tony Blair's business and that of the foreign and defence secretaries. All he did was behave generously when it came to funding it. End of.

He described this process much as you might deliberate over different quotes for a new fitted kitchen.

He talked learnedly of finance and billions, the safety net of Treasury-speak. Mr Brown wants to emerge from this inquiry as the man who was merely the accountant to Britain's entanglement in Iraq.

Repeatedly, he pointed a finger at the trinity of Blair, Straw and Hoon. When the words WMD were uttered, that oily quality became more pronounced.

He never did tell us what he really made of the Government's claims that we were in imminent danger from Saddam's weapons.

"I was fully in line with what was being done," he said — one of those great Gordonisms, which seem to accept responsibility while moving it elsewhere.

Sir Rodney Lynes tried again. Did the PM think the war was legal? "I wasn't involved in meetings with the Attorney General. But he was unequivocal."

That's not a charge that could be levied against
Gordon. "I'm not a lawyer," he said when pressed on the Attorney General's writhings.

Mr Brown isn't telling any lies. He is just hiding the obvious truth that by the time of the war he was permanently at odds with his neighbour on any number of issues.

With an election looming and the core vote hardening, Mr Brown nodded to gut Labour sentiment, that Parliament must vote on the decision to go to war.

Hmm. It rather depends what the Government chooses to tell Parliament that makes the difference. It was the right decision, he said, but of course, not his decision.

Repeat after Gordon: this was someone else's war.