Sir Kevin Tebbitt may have headlined Gordon Brown’s army-equipment culpability, but the media and the public aren’t really interested.

The Slog has been saying for a while now that Gordon Brown’s unwillingness to write cheques is not the main game in play at Chilcot. Following Sir Kevin Tebbitt’s specific accusation of yesterday, not one of the main media has it as a ‘top ten most read’ story. None of the online press lead with it. The Times has a scoop identifying the specific memo that doomed soldiers in Afghanistan (eventually) to losing limbs – thanks to lack of helicopters. And Dippy Dave devoted yet another tedious PMQs to the issue. But although there should be outrage, there isn’t: the mood is one of “Yeh well – we knew that anyway”.

UK politics has reached such a low-point now, only proof of heinous illegality (or corruption of an unexpectedly vile nature) is going to shift the balance of the forthcoming election one way or the other.
This is could come from Chilcot, but it may not. Either way, the manner in which Blair was ousted in 2006, I still believe, holds the key to finally laying bare the tooth-and-claw way in which both Brown and Blair had no respect for constitutional law while planning their career paths – to 10 Downing Street and international infamy respectively.
Clare Short showed the way on Tuesday. We mustn’t let the beachhead she created be closed again.