‘Responsible but guilty of nothing’

WITH measured politeness, British Prime Minister Tony Blair assured Lord Hutton yesterday that he was, of course, responsible in the end for everything.

But guilty, of course, of nothing.

This was, after all, the witness box in Court 73 of the Royal Courts of

Justice, and not the dock at the Old Bailey.

Those who had hoped for Mr Blair's blood on its functional carpet, however unlikely that might have seemed, were doomed to disappointment.

In the matter of the handling of Dr David Kelly Mr Blair assured the inquiry into the weapons expert's death that he had ensured from the start that a galaxy of Whitehall's top civil servants were involved.

This was not to shift the responsibility on to them of course not, stressed Mr Blair, time and again.

It was simply, as he put it, that he knew questions would be asked and he wanted to be able to demonstrate he had "played it by the book".

Thus even from the outset of the Kelly affair, when nobody could have known its unravelling, the prime minister conceded he was thinking ahead to the inevitable inquiry into its aftermath.

Dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and burgundy tie flecked with gentle tones, the prime minister struck a calm and composed posture, fiddling occasionally with his glasses.

He took his seat promptly at 10.30am, with just three of his close protection officers to hand.

James Dingemans, QC, his inquisitor, responded with some discreet fiddling of his own. Now, clasping and unclasping his hands; then running his finger gently between his jacket collar and his shirt. At times a hesitant, almost stuttering manner overcame him as he politely probed the prime minister's answers. There were no fireworks, fewer titters. But there were some

delightful cameos.

The picture was conjured up of Mr Blair hunched over his press officer Godric Smith's computer screen, overseeing with his chief of staff Jonathan Powell the Ministry of Defence press release confirming an official had come forward to say he had spoken to the BBC.

Or, in prime ministerial language: "I think certainly it came to Jonathan, and I may have scanned my eye over it myself. But I can't absolutely recall that."

Far from rushing to thrust Dr Kelly into the limelight, Mr Blair had been cautious all along, he assured Lord Hutton. He had wanted the right things to be done. He had been concerned, on the contrary, to make sure the government was not accused of concealing the expert's existence as a possible BBC source, hiding the fact from MPs.

He was worried that "at any minute" a leak would occur and the name be divulged in a messy manner.

And as for the original BBC charge, it was so serious that he, even he, would have had to resign were it to have been true.

Luckily, he seemed to be saying, we all know it wasn't.

At 12.50pm Mr Dingemans politely queried: "Is there anything else relating to the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death you can assist his lordship with?"

"No, I don't think so."

Was there anything else at all the prime minister wished to say: "No thank you."

And after a few moments' hesitation he gathered his glasses, fiddled with his tie and left the room with its 36 computer screens and banks of lawyers and stenographers and swept away from the building in his armoured Jaguar.

He will have an anxious wait to

discover whether he can leave the whole affair behind so easily.