The Public Transcripts 52 Jack Straw on Tony Blair

Jack Straw says that he and Tony Blair were different people and that the cabinet was actually full of people who sought to think for themselves...

The Public Transcripts 51 Tony Blair talks about talking to George W Bush

 Then finally it was time for Tony Blair to avoid telling us what he actually said to https://youtu.be/OQSot86tgBQ exactly ...again...

The Public Transcripts 50 Ex-Deputy PM Lord Prescott

 Ex-Deputy PM Lord Prescott made some interesting comments.  

And went on to talk at length about Tony Blair's "blame the French" policy...

...when confronted by the fact that Lord Goldsmith's definition of "A reasonable case" does not mean that "if the matter ever came before a court I would be confident that the court would agree with this view."... Lord Prescott replied simply "Cor Blimey" and noted that during the process....

And when asked if he would have liked to have known this at the time of making the decision to go to war seemed to be of the view that really all he required from Lord Goldsmith was a binary Yes or No answer.  This seems to have been the general policy of most of the cabinet: see no evil, hear no evil and ideally brief no evil.  Of course its worth noting that Lord Goldsmith was Attorney General for England and Wales - aren't there ones for Scotland and Northern Ireland too... so much for devolution.

The Public Transcripts 49 Dr Hans Blix, UN weapons expert and inspector

Next UN weapons expert and inspector Dr Hans Blix talked about what WMD he didn't find, the Iraqi obstruction his team suffered and said explicitly that in his personal view the war was illegal...

The Public Transcripts 47 Sir Peter Spencer KCB Chief of Defence Procurement, 2003 to 2007

Sir Peter Spencer KCB Chief of Defence Procurement, 2003 to 2007 made a valiant attempt to explain what had happend to those UAVs ...

The Public Transcripts 46 Baroness Elizabeth Manningham-Buller Deputy Director General, Security Service until 2002

Baroness Elizabeth Manningham-Buller Deputy Director General, Security Service until 2002 distanced herself from the dossier on WMD stating that the MI5 input was minimal and suggesting they would do better to ask MI6.  

The Public Transcripts 45 Stephen White OBE Director of Law and Order and Senior Police Adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority, 2003 to 2004

Stephen White OBE Director of Law and Order and Senior Police Adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority, 2003 to 2004 was very unhappy about what sounds like a near catastrophic lack of back up. A situation that turned into a PR disaster for the government when they allowed him to collaborate in a documentary for the BBC called "Basra Beat".