Telegraph | Opinion | He's right

Any fair-minded person watching Tony Blair's performance in the House of Commons yesterday would have concluded that we have a prime minister fit to lead us into war.[...]

Too bad all the "fair minded" people have chosen a side already. Still, it's nice to see someone thinks Blair is the leader he appears to be.

Mr Blair displayed courtesy, conviction, clarity, courage and even wit. His line was that the UN has willed the end of the disarmament of Saddam Hussein again and again: now the members of the Security Council must show that they will the means. Whether or not it was a mistake to "go the UN route" is, for the time being, irrelevant.


Mr Blair has taken that route, and he is following its logic with determination and belief. President Chirac said on Monday: "No matter what the circumstances, we will vote No." Those were not the words of someone who wants to make the international system work; Mr Blair's words were.


It is worth appealing to fair-mindedness here because that quality seems to have deserted the debate about Iraq. Whatever people's doubts and fears, there is something sick about a political culture in which television audiences slow-handclap a prime minister on the brink of war and MPs of his own party scurry round thinking of ways of overthrowing him.