Goldsmith’s Iraq war advice heads Thursday’s agenda
Thursday’s campaigning was overshadowed by the long-resisted publication of the Attorney General’s advice to the Government on the legality of the war in Iraq.
The 13-page confidential document of 7 March 2003 was released following the leaking on Wednesday of a summary.
In it, the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith suggested that while he could make a “reasonable case” for the invasion being legal without a second UN Resolution, a court “might well conclude” that it was in fact illegal.
This demonstrated that Lord Goldsmith had indeed changed his mind between this date, and when, on March 17, he gave an unambiguous endorsement of the legality of the war (full story).
Labour launched its business, skills and science manifesto, as it attempted to keep the agenda on surer ground. Tony Blair stressed the global challenges that British business faced in the years ahead, Gordon Brown reiterated Labour’s economic credentials, and Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt hit out at the Conservatives’ economic plans – but the bulk of the questions at Labour’s daily press conference focused on the legal advice (full story).
Insisting that the war was legal and that the decision to go to war was therefore a political one, Mr Blair argued: “I took the view then, I take it now, that it was better for this country’s security, and the security of the world, to remove Saddam and put him in prison rather than have him in power.”
Mr Brown also insisted that the whole Cabinet had been involved in the decision to take the country to war.
The Conservatives stuck with the theme that Mr Blair could not be trusted. Conservative leader Michael Howard accused the Prime Minister of “a lie” in claiming that the Attorney General’s advice had not been altered between March 7 and 17.
Once again repeating the now-infamous aphorism attributed to the Chancellor, Mr Howard asked “how can you trust Mr Blair on anything else, ever again?”
The Liberal Democrats’ campaign focus today was health, but leader Charles Kennedy described the released advice a “profoundly important development for our national life as well as for this general election campaign.”
“What it does without a shadow of a doubt is further undermine the Prime Minister’s reputation in all of this. This has come about as a result of him failing to take command of the situation, not just over the two or three weeks of this general election campaign, but frankly over the last two years”, Mr Kennedy argued (full story).
The evening saw an innovation in election broadcasting – the three main party leaders appeared on a special edition of Question Time on BBC1.
However, rather than being a head-to-head debate, each man faced the same audience separately.
First, Mr Kennedy insisted that the Liberal Democrats would not enter into a coalition with Labour – whoever was leader – after the election. Asked about why this was, when the Lib Dems were already in coalition with Labour in the Scottish Executive, Mr Kennedy claimed that it was due to the “perverse” electoral system.
Michael Howard’s 30 minutes focused heavily in immigration. He insisted that his policy would be to do “what is right for Britain”, and that this would mean taking more “genuine” refugees than the UK does at present. However, he was harangued by an asylum seeker who called him and his policies “evil” and compared him to Hitler.
Tony Blair’s session concentrated on the war in Iraq. Once again, Mr Blair maintained that the ends justified the means – that, however the war came about, it was better that Saddam was out of power than that he was still in power (full story).
