The worst bit is that he has made us in the Labour Party ambivalent and effectively complicit to what has gone on in Iraq, as it is now effectively relegated to an annoying interlude, a silly distraction from this, the most successful and just Government in our modern history.

As far as the Conference went, it was like Iraq didn't exist, and as for the War? It never happened.

The language used in the media is just breath taking. Iraq is described as Tony Blair's "folly", thought of a "mistake", labelled a "blunder",  we are told it is time "to move the debate on".

Sickeningly mendacious banalities that belie the inhuman and relentless suffering of a people who are desperate for some kind of normal life in the midst of a massive insurgency which has led the UK Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannat, to call for our troops to come home "sooner rather than later" as our presence "serves to exacerbate rather than ameliorate" the situation.

John Pilger in the New Statesman tells us that the proof of the Coalition as the problem is that in July 1,666 bombs were detonated by the so called insurgents of which 70% were directed at Coalition troops, 20% at the new Police Force, and 10% of these devices were aimed at rival Iraqi groups so nailing the myth of Civil War and a sectarianism.

Dannat also accuses the Prime Minister of "being naive"  if he believes democracy can ever take root if the current arrangements continue.

The Chief of Staff, when pressed on the Today Programme, admitted that Iraq could "break" the army.
"I want there to be and army in five years time", he concluded.

None of this, of course has anything with Dannat's concern for the Iraqi people. It is purely operational pragmatism and should be listened to all the more readily as it is objective and rational.

We can be "liberal with a small l crying in front of the TV", as Billy Bragg put it, or business will go on at Westminster as the Labour Government continues to drive Britain forward and if Blair changed his mind and stood for re- election then I would vote for him without a second thought.

But the War and it's aftermath diminishes, sullies, pollutes and taints the Government, the Party, the country and every UK citizen as we ignore it's horrific tragedy and pretend in reality that it never happened, the very ambivalence that allows terrible things to happen everywhere, every day, every hour, every moment and every second, be it domestic violence, petty criminality or in this case, genocide.