Apologies to Tam

When Tam Dalyell described Tony Blair as 'by far the worst' Prime Minister he'd observed from the Commons benches, I put it down to (not uncharacteristic) hyperbole. After all, my first job as a sabbatical-elect at Edinburgh was to take him to task for describing Blair as 'unduly influenced by a Jewish cabal'.

However, on Blair I should have taken him more seriously. In addition to what we already knew, only this week we learned the following:

• That, while telling Bush that his government was intent on regime change in Iraq, he was telling his officers quite the opposite.
• That his government was lending material support to brutal suppression of dissent in Gaza.
• That his government's unprecedented civil liberties encroachments were, surprise surprise, unnecessary - a 'symbol of hypocrisy' around the world, no less.

And now he is lecturing the Egyptians, whose government's oppression his did nothing to alleviate, on the benefits of gradual modernisation.

Tam, you were absolutely right. And, likewise, you were right when you said: 'that since Mr Blair [went] ahead with his support for a US attack without unambiguous UN authorisation, he should be branded as a war criminal and sent to The Hague.' That he used a progressive social democratic movement to do all of this compounds the crime.

But, rather than writing the man off as a vicious lying weasel with blood on his hands, we should seriously ask whether his messiah complex clouded his judgement. Can 'diminished responsibility' be taken into account in a war crimes trial?