even if Iraqis dance in the streets. One woman was in the Bali bombing, her boyfriend blown to bits. One mother had three sons at the front in the Gulf. One woman’s husband was a human shield at an Iraqi oil installation – would Blair promise not to bomb him? He writhed. An Iraqi victim of Saddam begged him not to attack her people. Worst of all, one mother lost her only child in the World Trade Centre and could not bear any other mother to suffer her agony. Their vehemence left him with a hunted air, his eyes flickering here and there, looking for escape. What’s more, against all the rules of balance, Trevor McDonald himself weighed in with “Aren’t you just Bush’s poodle?” questions. It was unfair and impossible. The war arguments are finely balanced – moral cause claimed by both sides – yet Downing Street is on the back foot every day now.Platitudes are crashing all around them, old diplomatic certainties among the broken crockery. Everyone is flying blind and now the British prime minister is at the mercy of a swindling old arms-dealing poseur in the Elysée, and even worse, the power-crazed global bullies in the White House. Guardian/UK