Brilliant: The late comedian Peter Cook The template for the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war was set way back in 1979 by the comic genius Peter Cook. In one of his most brilliant and inspired sketches, Cook delivered an hilarious and excoriating parody of the judge's summing up at the end of the trial of former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, who was accused with others of conspiring to murder his homosexual lover. 'You will probably have noticed that three of the defendants have very wisely chosen to exercise their inalienable right not to go into the witness box to answer a lot of impertinent questions. 'I will merely say that you are not to infer from this anything other than that they consider the evidence against them so flimsy that it was scarcely worth their while to rise from their seats and waste their breath denying these ludicrous charges...' 'You are now to retire, carefully to consider your verdict of "Not Guilty".' Cook captured perfectly the widespread incredulity that Thorpe had been acquitted despite an avalanche of damning evidence against him. The judge was perceived to be openly hostile to the prosecution and instinctively biased in favour of Thorpe, a fellow member of the Establishment. Thirty years on, nothing much has changed. Cook could have been satirising Chilcot - or any other 'independent' inquiry convened by Labour, come to that. The outcome was preordained even before a single piece of evidence had been heard. Opening the proceedings, Sir John Chilcot announced: 'We are not a court or an inquest or a statutory inquiry. No one is on trial. We can not determine guilt or innocence.' Testimony will be voluntary and witnesses who might incriminate themselves are to be given immunity. Civil servants likely to be called have been given nine separate grounds for refusing to furnish any information which the Government considers damaging. Farce: The Chilcot Inquiry echoes the satirical comment by comic Peter Cook about the Jeremy Thorpe case in 1979 Gordon Brown, once again plumbing his inexhaustible depths of moral and political cowardice, has made it clear that he has no intention of appearing before the hearing. He would rather maintain the pretence that he harboured deep reservations about the war than admit to the truth that he was as gung-ho as Tony Blair and sent his henchmen to twist the arms of reluctant Labour backbenchers into supporting the invasion. Evidence of his refusal to fund the Armed Forces properly, denying them vital equipment which could have saved countless lives, will be suppressed. Brown would sooner apologise for matters which are nothing to do with him, such as the deportation of children to Australia before he was born, than ever admit culpability for his own actions. Special relationship: Soldiers pay the 'blood price' for our involvement in Bush's war while Blair enjoys the lucrative lecture circuit At least Blair will appear before the inquiry in the New Year. The thespian in him finds the grand stage irresistible. He will have no difficulty charming and bamboozling the Labour stooges on the panel. Our former Prime Minister will continue to insist that he did the right thing at the time and has nothing for which to apologise, even though it is now clear beyond a reasonable doubt that he lied through his teeth. His explanations will be accepted gratefully and without dispute by Chilcot and his biddable associates. If all else fails, he'll plead the Fifth. Lying to the House of Commons was once considered a serious offence, let alone taking the country to war on the basis of a deliberate lie. Yet while brave men and women daily pay the 'blood price' for Britain's involvement in Bush's war, Blair enjoys a lucrative meal ticket on the American lecture circuit and a multimillion-pound property portfolio built on the mortal sacrifices of others. Of course, there was a perfectly honest and respectable case to be made for military intervention in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was in breach of a raft of United Nations resolutions and encouraged the impression that he was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. He expelled UN inspectors and defied every single ultimatum issued. He had a record of warmongering and genocide. But when push came to shove, Blair couldn't resist inventing reasons for Britain joining the invasion, such as the infamous '45 minutes' dossier cobbled together by Alastair Campbell. New Labour's default setting is always to lie, dissemble, conceal or exaggerate hysterically. It is incapable of telling the unvarnished truth, whether it's about so-called 'climate change', the extent of financial support-for the banks or sending British troops into battle. Once rumbled, ministers order an 'independent' inquiry under a pliant, hand-picked chairman, such as Lord Hutton or Sir Robin Butler, who can be relied upon to hose down the problem with industrial quantities of white emulsion. There's always a New Labour Establishment placeman to erase the inconvenient truth, from absolving Peter Mandelson of serial wrongdoing to excusing MPs who have blatantly fiddled their expenses and cheated the taxman. When it comes to Iraq, the case against Blair is already in the public domain. Chilcot will only serve to tell us what we know already or confirm what we suspected all along. But even if such evidence as is allowed proves illuminating, it will do nothing to bring the guilty men to account. If Chilcot had a shred of integrity he would have refused to have accepted such a poisoned brief, constrained by terms of reference designed to conceal the true facts and the extent of this government's duplicity. There is no point in holding an expensive, time-consuming inquiry which will be denied access to the most damning evidence. Especially when it will be refused the opportunity to cross-examine the current Prime Minister, who was one of the key players in the decision to take us to war, yet has chosen - in Peter Cook's immortal words - to exercise his inalienable right not to answer a lot of impertinent questions. All that will remain at the end of this Establishment stitch-up will be for Chilcot to retire, carefully to consider his verdict of 'Not Guilty'. The Foreign Office has quietly withdrawn an official publication called The United Kingdom: 100 Questions Answered. It was available in overseas embassies and was designed to explain everything from the rules of cricket and cockney rhyming slang to the ingredients of haggis. To represent the rich ethnic mix of our nation, the guide is illustrated by an Asian woman saying 'Eee-by-gum' (presumably she's from Bradford), a black man saying 'Yo, man' and a tartan-clad Scot from central casting, alongside the words: 'Och Aye Da Noo.' It explains that the most common free time activity outside the home for adults is a trip to the pub for a game of 'short weighted steel darts thrown at a circular board numbered in sections'. There were understandable concerns that the booklet might be a little outdated and could therefore paint a misleading picture of modern Britain. A spokesman said: 'Parts of it are Sir Humphrey-esque.' I can't wait for the new version. 'After a jolly visit to the pub, young people like nothing more than to vomit in the street and stab each other. . .' Back in 2005, I wrote a spoof account of the Battle of Trafalgar, imagining it being fought under modern elf'n'safety constraints. It was inspired by a newspaper photograph of an actor playing Nelson in a 200th anniversary re-enactment being forced to wear a lifejacket over his 19th century Admiral's uniform and has been doing the rounds on the internet ever since. At the time, it was supposed to be a joke. Little did I imagine that four short years later, the Royal Navy would refuse to rescue a couple of British hostages hijacked at sea off Somalia because someone might get hurt. Or that any Somali pirate wounded or captured would be entitled to seek asylum in Britain and could sue for damages under the 'yuman rites' act. Sometimes, even I can't make it up. Last week, I told you about the group of students refused a bottle of wine and a packet of candles for a birthday cake by the Warwick branch of M&S because only five out of six of them could prove they were over 18. It gets sillier. Peter O'Brien writes to tell me that his daughter and her partner, both over 18, were told they couldn't buy a bottle of vanilla essence from Waitrose, in Buxton, Derbyshire, because only one of them had proof of identity. Vanilla essence is approximately one per cent alcohol and each bottle contains about enough to fill a thimble. But as far as the cake police are concerned, you can't be too careful. The Parliamentary expenses scandal is causing unintended collateral damage beyond Westminster. Britain's leading manufacturer of duck houses may be forced into bankruptcy. Ivor Ingall, who runs Heytesbury Bird Pavilions, has suffered a catastrophic slump in sales since Sir Peter Viggers, Tory MP for Gosport, was revealed to have claimed £1,645 for a floating duck house on his Commons expenses. Mr Ingall has managed to shift just two this year, down from 15 in 2007. Apparently, people are too embarrassed to buy duck houses in the current climate. Well, you wouldn't want the neighbours thinking you're an MP, would you? What Peter Cook would have made of the Chilcot Inquiry
Last updated at 7:59 AM on 27th November 2009
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