THE fallout and repercussions from the Chilcot Report will last for a very long time; certainly as long as Tony Blair keeps claiming that the world is now a safer place, in spite of escalating terrorist violence since 2003 from a few deaths to thousands now.

While we remember the service personnel and thousands of civilian Iraqis who died in the illegal war, there were many other casualties. Not often mentioned were the callously destroyed careers at the BBC of Andrew Gilligan, Gavyn Davies and Greg Dyke.

The hounding to death of Dr David Kelly, as well as being a tragedy for his family, is another bloody stain on Blair’s record. All of these men were vilified for supporting the truth. 

We live in a country where an impoverished job-seeker can be sanctioned for being a few minutes late for an interview, while the man responsible for the illegal deaths of thousands will probably escape any legal action and continue to enjoy his millions. 

Another member of the elite who trashed his credibility was Lord Hutton, whose earlier report exonerated the government in spite of all the evidence set before him. 

Another character in the sordid affair not named by Chilcot (I think) is Alastair Campbell. His actions as Blair’s henchman were disgraceful, and he has the brass neck to still claim that his and Blair’s actions were honourable. As far as I am concerned he was involved in two dodgy dossiers – the first lifted from a student’s writings and rightly ridiculed, and the second one being presented to Parliament as the justification for war. I believe Campbell returned this dossier to the Security Council eight times – for “hardening” – eight times! Hence the reason the dossier contained no caveats, and unbelievably was not questioned by most MPs.

Few people in high places emerge from this darkest period of British foreign policy with their integrity intact. One is the late Robin Cook, who really did seem to believe in an ethical foreign policy, and tried to warn parliament and the country of the impending disaster. Another is the current leader of the Labour party Jeremy Corbyn; no wonder then that he has been relentlessly hounded by MPs on both sides of the house who voted for the war and are desperate to sideline him, and a sordid right-wing press which bayed for the war with the despicable Murdoch in the vanguard.

The millions of people who instinctively knew the impending war was unjust and demonstrated against it have all been exonerated. Every one of them can be proud of the action they took, and I’m sure any one of them could have made a better fist of being Prime Minister than the betrayer of democratic socialist principles and his country.

Richard Walthew Duns

IT takes a big man to admit when he is wrong so kudos to John Prescott for apologising for the Iraq War. Pity it took thirteen years for him to see what the late Robin Cook saw at the time, that the intelligence was flawed.

A cynic may think he is blowing with the prevailing wind, but that would be doing a disservice to a working-class warrior who always stuck to his principles, even in the House of Lords.

James Mills Johnstone 

‘TONY Blair the world’s worst terrorist? I find it hard to disagree’ (Mhairi Black, The National, July 9). A bit over the top Mhairi, especially when there were loads of people involved and actually the Kurds and marsh Arabs were supporters of ousting Saddam.

B Mckenna Dumbarton

Citizenship can’t be forced on those who don’t want it

PAUL Kavanagh risks sounding like denying that human rights constrain a state’s internal decisions – eg, there is international law against expelling population groups from citizenship and making them stateless (Wee Ginger Dug: The UK is a laughing stock, it’s time to quit, The National, July 9). Do campaigners for the Palestinians accept Israel as solely entitled to decide their citizenship?

I welcome his confidence that Scotland will have a citizenship entitlement by parental descent. That is basic to complying with ECHR article 8 on family life, as it is a practicality of not dividing families.

A state also has no right to impose its citizenship onto citizens of another state against their will. If, as New Labour histories indicate, Blair by background counts himself English, he has the choice not to be a Scottish citizen. To keep choice like this clarified, “unrefusable” is always a better word than “automatic” to use about citizenship. But independent states could choose to merge their citizenships, as the EU was part way to doing, each state remaining entitled to grant it but having to accept each other’s citizens as their own too. 

The USA, Canada, and Australia cited the dividing of citizenship as grounds to urge a No vote, yet their own past independences had led to dividing off their citizenships from ours. In exchange for thus becoming involved parties in the UK’s constitutional future, we have claim logically that they should remove those barriers again, and all together create a great pan-Western citizenship union! Think how much more humane recent history would be if they had done that before the EU ref, and how Obama’s intervention would not have backfired if he had been speaking inside a citizenship union with us.

Maurice Frank South Queensferry 

AFTER the disgraceful remarks she made about women with children vis-a-vis women without, Andrea Leadsom should have the decency to withdraw from the competition to be Prime Minister. She is not fit to occupy any senior role in government until she learns to connect her brain to her mouth. LEAD SOMone else, Mrs Leadsom.

Mike Underwood Linlithgow


THE faux-indignation that Andrea Leadsom has shown towards The Times is a sign of desperation.Mrs Leadsom is a Thatcherite on steroids. What is more worrying than her 19th-century obscurantist views on families however, is the fact her campaign is being endorsed by Ukip donor Arron Banks. Mr Banks has made clear that he expects the NHS to be privatised. Mr Banks’s intervention raises the possibility of Ukip being brought back into the Tory fold.

While the current Tory leadership has demolished workers rights, Leadsom wantsan all-out assault on them. In 2012 in Parliament she said: “I  envisage there being absolutely no regulation whatsoever – no minimum wage, no maternity or paternity rights, no unfair dismissal rights, no pension rights.” 

That was the ultimate aim of the Brexit campaign. Leadsom has also expressed her determination to cut the Barnett formula. She has made several claims about her career before she went into Parliament, including that she was heavily involved in calming markets after the collapse of Bearings bank. No-one else seems to recall her.

Andrea Leadsom in Downing Street will be a nightmare from which the country may never recover. Her failed ideology will only benefit the super-rich.

Alan Hinnrichs Dundee

LEAVE voters in Scotland may dismally conclude that they can’t vote yes to independence because the SNP back staying in Europe. These voters may be purblind for the moment but will smell the coffee in time. They think the falling pound is good for exports, but 50 per cent of our export industries depend on imports, which will become more expensive, and British exporting firms are either linked in business chains with Europe or have their markets there.

You may have thought the debate on Europe has been put behind us, but we have to remain open to being objective in reading the runes so that the SNP plans for independence doesn’t end up in ruins.

Andrew Vass Edinburgh


Carolyn Leckie: Inquiries offer hope to victims of iniquity

More woe for Blair as Prescott agrees Iraq War was 'illegal'