It seems Ferrari have escaped further punishment for using banned team orders, so just the $100K fine and that’s it for being a little too blatant in manipulating the result of the race. No real surprise there.

Here is my original post and thoughts. To recap, Massa was told over the team radio: “Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understand?”

The Brazilian responded by letting Alonso through in a move we can safely describe as “unsubtle”.

Immediately afterwards Massa’s race engineer added “Good lad. Just stick with it now. Sorry.”

The rules are clear; a team is not allowed to interfere with the race result. A couple of team principals were rather vocal about the damage to the sport’s credibility.

Ferrari principal Stefano Domenicali stated post-race that the team had only wanted to keep Massa aware of the latest race developments and that Ferrari didn’t give him explicit instructions to move over.

Explicit no, clear yes.

Domenicali continued “And because we have already seen in the past that certain situations could not give the best result for the team, that was the information that we wanted to give and we leave the drivers to understand and take notice of it in order to make sure that the team in terms of the result is the best,” he said.

The $100K fine was the maximum the stewards could give, any additional sanction (up to and including disqualification) would have to come from the World Motorsports Council (WMC).

The WMC met this morning and kept the slap on the wrist fine and imposed no further sanction. This was decided over the last few weeks in the politicking and back rooms deals that make F1 so interesting. Today was just a formality to close out the incident.

Generally I think the teams would like the ban on team orders to go away, they are almost impossible to police unless the team gets really dumb and flaunts them in the way Ferrari did in Germany. A little more subtlety and no one would be any the wiser.

Drivers work for the team; they are employees of Ferrari and will do what their employer tells them too. Ferrari wants to win races and championships. This put their top driver in the championship a better position.

Today Ferrari is 80 points behind Red Bull in the constructors’ championship. Alonso is 41 points behind Lewis Hamilton in the drivers’ race. Felipe Massa is a further 32 points further back and there are 25 points available for a win.

Piquet Jr put his Renault into the wall in Singapore a couple of years ago on team orders, selling a pass by a faster team mate should be laughably easy in comparison and Ferrari deserved the fine for lack of imagination in the execution.

Last word to Eddie Jordan “What Ferrari did was they showed no respect to the public, they treated us all like muppets, they broke the rule.”

A couple of months ago I went to Spa as a guest of one of the teams to watch the GP. This was the sixth or seventh time I’ve been to the circuit at Spa-Francorchamps, but my first visit since ’95. The Bus Stop chicane and La Source have been changed (Bus Stop certainly for the better). The start straight is longer and the pit lane is wider than it was, but still what an estate agent would describe as “compact”.

Spa is like many of the older circuits has it origins in the local roads and today still faithfully follows the geography of the Ardennes. And that is one of the things that make the place so special. The trickier corners have been smoothed over the years, the big earth banks (see Zanardi’s accident in the Lotus in ‘93) have been replaced by run off areas with acres of gravel. These are good changes and all done in the name of safety, but the character of the place along with its ambiance is still there.

It could be argued that the only “original” circuits left are really Monaco (road course and so much tradition), Interlagos (a race track since 1940), Monza (laid out in a park and once again so much tradition) and of course Spa (follows old roads). Every other circuit in 2010 is a purpose built racing track, not saying that’s bad, they have great facilities and some have produced some good racing.

Valencia for a start is a great looking circuit and a contender for a visit from me next year. While it’s never going to compete with Monaco for harbour side ambiance, it does not need too as it’s not pretending to be Monaco.

The new Silverstone layout looks interesting. While there is tradition there with both in the track and the owners, it’s still a flat former airfield. Unfortunately I think the redesign at the end of ’94 really did take away a great track that separated the men from the boys. I understand why it had to be done after the deaths of Roland Ratzenburger and Ayrton Senna, but the old Silverstone was a circuit the brave loved and the rest feared.

Barcelona has established itself as a great place to race, 20 years ago it was one of the first of the purpose build “new” circuits and considered rather bland, flat and sterile at the time. Great facilities compared to many of the other circuits at the time, but the racing was rrely talked about after the weekend was over (exception – Mansell in ’95, but that had nothing to do with the track). Now I understand it’s rather looked forward too after a series of small ongoing modifications has turned it an enjoyable drivers track.

I do wonder if that’s in comparison to other “new circuits” that try to squeeze a lot of track into a small area. From the outside it looks that the design of the huge hospitality suites and “signature buildings” may be a bigger design driver than the quality of the racing. It just seems rather strange to me.

Le Mans still had the 1960’s rabbit hutch garages and a super narrow pit lane when I first went there with Spice in 1990, which ages me. If you took a wheel off you had to put it next to you, not behind you otherwise you risked a car coming along the pit lane and hitting it. It really was that narrow. Add that all work on the car had to be done in the open as there were no garages, just a tiny breeze block space to store a few parts. Finally, lets not forget that on top of all that there was thousands of gallons of fuel being put into cars during the race too, the fuel supply pipes ran across the ceiling of the garage.

When I went back to Le Mans in ’92 there was a huge new garage complex and it was far nicer to work there. I guarantee no one missed the old pissour at the back of the paddock with the dour looking woman running the place and her kids playing in the building.  Being shot evil glances when you walked in with your own toilet paper.

The new complex was really state of the art at the time, massive grandstand, able to back the trailers up to the gages, a massive wide pitlane with a real wall. All things that were so long overdue, that made working there easier and much safer. But the atmosphere was different, everyone worked in individual garages rather than under awnings in the paddock and the social part was defiantly took a hit.

I’m not sure if it’s an indication of the lowering of expectations of what a good race is or acceptance that tradition comes second to printing money. F1 is expensive, so expensive it needs to keep looking for new revenue and a lot of that is coming at the expense of tradition.

Looking back to my first full year working for Cosworth there were more races at “traditional” circuits. Imola, Mexico City, Österreichring and the full Hockenheinring were on the calendar. At the time could not have imagined a calendar without Imola or any GP in France, but that is todays reality. We know Bernie is no respecter of tradition, and the future of the British GP was very, very questionable for a while. With so many teams based in England, not to race there is unthinkable to many.

Donninton has only hosted a handful of Grand Prix, but the best drive I’ve ever seen was at the European GP in ’93. That was Sennas’ day and his drive has quite rightly become the stuff of legend. It was a privilege to be there that day and see maybe the best driver ever absolutely destroy everyone else. Those are the days you watch sport for.

Singapore, Dubai, Korea and others have paid a lot of money to host races, and the money they spend buys some instant credibility in world sports and raises the profile of the host. It does not buy good racing, good design and thoughtful execution that’s sympathetic to the geography does that.

There is a now F1 track being built outside Austin to host a GP in 2012. The designer is Hermann Tilke (does most of Bernie Ecclestone’s new circuit designs, including Korea, Abu Dhabi, Valencia, Bahrin, Shanghai and many others) and has been asked to incorporate the outlines of famous corners from historic tracks around the world into the new track. It should be interesting to see what comes out of that experiment.

With the questions I have about the man it was inevitable that I was going to get Blair’s memoirs. It does make me feel a little better that my money is going to the British Legion rather than his Tonyness.

Unlike most post career memoirs this one was written by the subject. Blair says that he wrote every word in longhand “on hundreds of notepads” and as the deadline approached he even had his blackberry taken away. I can believe that, he’s an OK writer, but the book would have benefited from fewer clichés and a few more reflective moments.

Unquestionably he is one of the best communicators as a speaker or interviewee. The moments he talked off the cuff and threw away the speeches was when he was at his best, and his best was brilliant (Labour conference in ’95 or ’96 where he talked about his belief and vision for the UK was astounding). In those moments he showed a passion and created a connection that is sorely missing from the book.

One of the most interesting things in the book were his thoughts on Gordon Brown, it’s clear that their relationship in later years was at best, poor. He admits to never really dealing with Brown and his allies when they started to undermine his position; this led to what some commentators called the “Blair-Brown civil war”. Perhaps his most important admission is that he knew Brown would be a disaster a premier (which he was) but did nothing to change the succession agreement between the two rivalries.

He writing does lead to a sort of honesty that’s missing from many of his contemporaries efforts. Unquestionably one of his biggest triumphs was the peace agreement in Northern Ireland. Yet in his discussions of that time he admits to stretching the truth to “breaking point” when trying to put together a settlement in Northern Ireland. Few, if any politicians are honest enough to admit that they were willing to deceive to make the right things happen.

This same emotional honest is missing from his justification for Iraq. He’s direct and clear that he still believes that it was the right thing to do.

He sees him self as a man who tried to bring out the positives in other, and there is significant evidence that this is the case. This is the man who got Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley to work together for peace in Northern Ireland, no one else could have managed that.

He does admit his admiration for George Bush, he calls him a man of genuine integrity and an idealist. You rather get the impression that Blair felt rather bent over by Bush and the relationship does not always reflect well on Blair. Again there is an honesty that was somewhat unexpected, but at the same time the mistakes are not truly acknowledged.

The title comes from his transition over the course of his premiership.

He started his term as a populist leader that completed the Labour journey to government started by Neil Kinnock and John Smith. Ten years later he had matured into a statesman led by his beliefs, popular or not. Ultimately he had to compromise and reshape some of his beliefs to become Labours longest serving PM, he’s open about the compromises he made and accepts where the journey ended was not where he wanted it to.

It’s interesting, and as these books inevitably do, it’s promises more than it delivers. However My Journey comes far closer than many of his peers in delivering something substantial.

In order for grief to pass it must be acknowledged, emotions need to be heard and today they were listened too. I allow myself to experience the grief that comes with the three year illness and death of my mother, the ending of relationships and felt most acutely today the health of my father.

One of my previous rally cars has arrived back in the Northwest after six years in California. The RX-7 is the car Carey Wright and myself took to a couple of Northwest 2WD championships. It’s just been brought by a friend of Careys and is back in North Bend.

It took quite a number of class wins and even a couple of overall podiums, while never what you could call pretty it only had a couple of did-not-finish in three years. One broken fuel pump and a close encounter with a deep ditch while leading the class at the Oregon Trail rally, a national championship event.

Under the duct tape door numbers were our original car numbers from years ago.

It’s fun to see it back. It needs a little work done to it, but the plan is that it will be ready for the season opening Doo-Wop rally next year. Of course it does need a co-driver…

The people at the top of cricket have a tough choice to make in response to the alleged betting scam rolling around cricket right now. First is hand out life bans to anyone involved and talk about putting the house in order. Or they can work at the root cause of mess and try to stop the situation from happening again

The first way is easy; the right way is far tougher.

If you are not aware, the short version of events is that three or four members of the Pakistan team touring England are under investigation for taking money to do certain things during a game. No one is accused of throwing a game, but it’s not far off.

The England and Wales Cricket Board’s priority seems to be to ensure that the rest of the tour goes ahead, but minus the players at the center of the betting scandal. Initially this looked like the right thing to do, but after giving it a little more thought I’ve changed my mind. It puts money ahead of principal, which considering the allegations seems somewhat appropriate.

On the field it is clear after the test series that England are the stronger of the two teams, take away Pakistan’s two best bowlers, wicket keeper and captain and there seems little point in playing the ten planned 20/20 and 50-over games. England will take them apart and it’s not a competition anymore.

In the longer term there is the issue of corruption in cricket. History shows that it’s been a big, ongoing problem within the sport, even if spot-betting is seen by many as less insidious than Hansie Cronje’s match fixing

As it always is, the root cause of the current problem money, or lack of it. The infrastructure of Pakistani top level cricket has always been questionable. Over the last couple of years after the terrorist attack against Sri Lanka in Lahore, every game played on the road and this has weakened the already poor organization even further.

The touring party are paid far less then their English, Indian and Australian counterparts. In this series it’s been suggested that the Pakistan players will have been earning perhaps 10% the amount of their rivals. Now someone comes along and gives you thousands to bowl a no ball, this is something that which will have little or no effect on the overall result, how difficult is it to say “yes”?

The long term challenge facing the International Cricket Council (ICC) is taking on the ongoing corruption in Pakistan cricket. This would be a long, tough road, but it’s either that or Pakistan stops playing at the highest level.

Then there is the question of what do you do with the players involved? A life ban seems extreme, especially in the case of the 18 year old Mohammad Amir who’s only been playing at this level for a year or so. His 6 wicket haul at Lords was deserved and he has the potential to be one of the superstars of this game. To see him banned for life would be a travesty.

I think the first step is take the players away from the problem, because the security situation does not allow Pakistan to play any games at home the team spends months at a time on the road.

The ICC has to reach into their coffers and put the game in Pakistan right. Have the top players play outside Pakistan, let them play the domestic game in England, India, Australia and so on. Give the players a chance to share in the money generated by the game in these countries.

Also the Pakistani team needs to be given a home for a few years untill they can start hosting series in Pakistan again. Dubai or the UAE seems the obvious candidates, they are states who have started using high profile sports to raise their profile in the world. Cricket may just fit into that.

The ICC will have to work to make this happen along with rebuilding the game inside Pakistan. It will take quite a leap of faith by the ICC, not to mention significant resources, but it’s only by tacking the problem at its source can it be put right. The source of this problem is the failure of the Pakistani domestic and international game.

The ICC can either keep Pakistan in the cricketing wilderness, or do the hard work to bring them back into the fold and give the players the stability to make living from the game.

I’ve spent time around professional sportsmen in the past, and the unfortunate truth is people who make living out of sport don’t take the “spirit of the game” view of sport. They tend to be far more mercenary and are generally more interested in making money during what may be a short and very tough career.

It is the journalists and the fans that add the narrative and romance that make great sport so special and meaningful. I’m as guilty of that as anyone; I do love sport and what it can mean to people, but at the same time for professionals it really is work.

I missed Saturdays win over Chicago, but it sounded like a fun game with Montero scoring the winner in injury time.

This was a huge game for both sides, and not because of Freddie’s return, but because of the points on the table and the two sides battling out for the final playoff places.

This is the combined MLS table, if the season were to finish today Seattle would be in as 4^th seed in the west and would get a first round game against the fading LA Galaxy. Recent form shows LA are not nearly as fearsome as they were in July when they took Seattle apart at the HDC.

However this only shows part of the story and can be safely ignored for now as there are a lot of teams with games in hand (GIH) over Seattle. If these teams win out (impossible I know as they play each other, but it’s worst case we are looking at here) the picture for the Sounders is a little less cut and dried.

Today Seattle has 32 points and Chicago has 24 points, at first glance a healthy lead for Seattle. However Chicago have played three games less than Seattle. This means 9 points to Chicago if they win those games.

That would move Chicago to 33 points, one ahead of Seattle and drop Seattle to 9^th in the second combined table that assumes teams win those games in hand (GIH). This pushes Seattle out of the play-offs by one point.

To give the short version of events, the game in Chicago on September 26^th has become a very important game. Win there and Seattle controls their own destiny into the post season. Loose and the road to the play offs requires the Sounder Nation to concern ourselves with other peoples results.

Spa is one of my favourite tracks, and along with Monza it’s certainly one of my favourite Grand Prix. Spa always throws up the unexpected, it’s a long track, has elevation changes, a couple of places that separate the men from the boys, and to be charitable we’ll call the weather “changeable”.

It’s very much a driver’s track, Eau Rouge is a classic and a well set up car can take it flat, it’s just up to the driver if it will actually happen. The TV does not show how steep the road into and out of the corner is, even in a road car the compression at the bottom is substantial, and in an F1 car at 180 it must be huge.

I’ve thrashed a rental car around the circuit many years ago; it’s really an incredible place. At that time part of it was still a regular road for most of the year. The transition from full-time race track tarmac to part-time track/road was startling and not easy. That challenge has gone, but plenty still remain.

Every race I’ve been to at Spa the weather was always the centre of conversation, and this weekend was no different, practices were run in both the wet and the dry. Race day promised showers, and the forecasters were right.

The front of the grid was the usual mix of Ferraris, McLarens and Red Bulls. I missed morning practice, but the time sheets saw the same cars at the top. The question was could Red Bull make the best of their equipment, while not expected to be as dominant here as they were at the last two races at Hockenhem and the Hungaroring where they were the class of the field. Today Weber was on pole and Vettel third.

McLaren have been at their strongest on the fast circuits, and Spa today and Monza in a couple of weeks are the fastest two tracks of the year. The team certainly seemed confident and expected to do well and pick some points over these races.

The one thing TV will never be able to convey is the noise of 26 Grand Prix cars running together on the start grid and flat out on the opening lap. If you have heard it and it did not move you, I’ve no idea what to say. You can feel it in your chest; it’s an incredible thing to be exposed too.

At Spa I think the best place to a spectator is after La Source on the run down to Eau Rouge. You see the cars at their slowest and at about their fastest. The acceleration of an F1 car out of the hairpin is breathtaking and the speed carried through the fast corner at the bottom of the hill is astounding.

On-off showers marked the morning and after lunch it dried up for the start. Mark Weber missed his start; Lewis Hamilton came out of La Source on the first lap in front. Jenson Button was trying to make it a McLaren 1-2, but Vettel slammed the door hard. Weber came through fighting with Robert Kubica for 4^th.

After a couple of laps the rain started, never that hard. But for a 650 horsepower car on slicks it does not need to be much to cause problems. This was always a race where the team had a huge role to play on race day, making calls about the incoming weather, when to change rubber and actually performing the pit stops.

Alonso changed early, surprisingly into full wets. Cars were certainly struggling to get the power down out of the hairpin and a couple used all the run off available when they messed up their braking points.

As the track dried it was Hamilton comfortably ahead of Kubica and Weber, who were in a great battle and had opened up a little gap to Vettel trying to get around Button for fourth. A battle that was soon over when Vettel messed up his braking into Bus Stop and took out Jenson Button. Vettel was able to carry on, but lost a lot of time.

The rain came out again and most cars dived into the pits. Hamilton stayed out another lap and importantly Weber emerged from the pits ahead of Kubica. This time the rain was heavier and lasted until the end.

Felipe Massa span his Ferrari into the wall after Radilion and brought out the safety car for three laps. The order stayed the same for the last few laps, Hamilton from Weber, from Kubica.

Hamilton and Weber had great days while the other three contenders for the drivers’ title either finished outside the points (Vettel) or failed to finish (Button and Massa). Once again Red Bull have not lived up to the promise of qualifying. Vettel made a huge error under braking and took out Button. Weber had pole and did not get the start right. There is still something not quite right with Red Bull, if they had cut out the errors they would be running away with both the drivers and manufacturers championships, but that’s not happening.

Monza in two weeks, I wont be there unfortunately, but I will go to more GPs. I’d forgotten how good race day could be, thanks to the boys in Silver for the invite.

I got into London late last night, still jetlagged as heck after a couple of days on the continent and not at my best, but very much looking forward to a busy couple of days to catch up with some friends and have some fun with my family. Today I got to do something I’ve not done in about 15 years and enjoy a full day of cricket at the storied Lord’s ground in London with dad. That it turned out to be a very compelling day of cricket really was a bonus.

It’s a long time since dad’s been to a cricket game, he taught me to appreciate the game and as much fun as the 20/20 and limited overs versions are there is nothing like a test match series. The way the game twists and turns over the five days makes it such a unique sporting experience.

I remember sitting down with dad in ’80 (I think) watching England from Australia over Christmas at the end of the year. I don’t recall the score, but England probably got absolutely hammered. He spent days explaining and sharing the game with me. Two years later when England was hosting Australia, a series that is now known as “Botham’s Ashes”, I sat and watched a significant part of the series with dad. I can’t claim to have watched the whole of the famous Edgebaston test, but I did understand the significance of what was going on when we were watching it.

The Ian Botham and Bob Willis England come back against the Australians at Edgebaston is well recorded, but looking back, sitting with dad and understanding the significance of that innings and the game makes it even more special. Up untill then England had been outclassed by what history has shown to be a very good Australian side, but somehow they came back and won the game that turned the series around.

This illustrates one of the things that makes sport so special for many. It brings people together in a shared cause. While we celebrate the individual and team performances, it’s who we share those special moments with that make it so important. That many years later these performances remind us of some very special shared memories.

Cricket is the one sport that dad is willing to give England his support in. Elsewhere it’s as it should be, support Scotland first and whoever England is playing second. When it comes to cricket it’s very much England, this might have something to do with Scotland hardly impressive recent cricket history, but none the less it’s notable enough to mention.

Dad talked about growing up in Greenock and regularly watching Greenock Cricket Club, one of Scotlands more successful and important club teams. It’s not a hugely popular game in Scotland, and Greenock CC has a beautiful little ground and attracted some high profile cricketers to take part in it’s games.

A little background on today, it was the final Test in a four-game series between England and Pakistan, England were leading the serried 2-1 but got absolutely spanked at the last game at the Oval.

England needed not to loose to secure the series win over Pakistan. Friday was the second day and England were in deep, deep trouble, which makes the events of the day so surprising and one of those moments one watches sports for.

England started the day on 13/1 with most of the first day having been lost to rain. We arrived about an hour into play, dad is not as sprightly as he was, but wanted to go and we took it rather slowly this morning getting to the St Johns Wood.

We stopped at the bar to grab a sandwich and first pint of the day before heading to our seats. The TV in the Long Bar said England were on 47/5, a mid order batting collapse that was impressive as it was quick, even by England’s lofty standards.

The last three batsmen, the heart of England’s order, had contributed the grand total of zero runs. Dad commented about this being a day we should see a lot of wickets fall, and that England were going to have to work themselves out of this one to have a chance of winning.

Jonathon Trott and Mark Prior were at the crease when we got to our seats, Trott was on 31 and Prior was on 10. It looked like a lively wicket as both batsmen had moments of living dangerously; Prior especially did not look comfortable and was out shortly after lunch for 22. Graham Swann continued the trend and added nothing to the scoreboard. This made the score 102/7 and it was looking good for Pakistan.

Trott slowly put together a half century and Stuart Broad now partnered him in the middle. Broad played some very questionable strokes, but got away with it.

The scoreboard slowly advanced and the England pair started to look a little more comfortable and certainly had a little luck on their side. The wicket seemed to calm down as the day warmed up and the frustration of not finishing England off clearly showed as the Pakistani bowlers sent down the occasional bouncer.

Trott looked comfortable out there, he played some good defensive cricket and punished the poor bowling and mistakes when they came his way.

Stuart Broad rode his luck and had his finest batting performance of his long test career, but as good as Broad was he was overshadowed by the determined and very controlled strokeplay of Jonathon Trott.

Today we saw some great cricket with both the bat and ball. The 18 year old Pakistani bowler Aamer took 6 of the seven England wickets that fell for 73 runs.

At 102/7 before the tea interval England looked out of it. It seemed only a matter of time before some very impressive bowling dispatched the rest tail end of the order. At the same time the England bowlers must have been looking forward to a chance to bowl on this wicket, they needed a decent run total to give them a chance, and they did not have that.

Trott made his century not long after tea, he had been at the crease for almost five hours at this point building what turned out to be a great innings. He ended the day with a magnificent 149 not out, it’s one of the best test innings I’ve certainly ever seen and showed exactly what makes test cricket so fascinating.

Stuart Broad ended the day on 112 not out, he survived some good bowling on what looked like an interesting wicket. He certainly had some luck on his side with a couple of calls that went his way and batting errors that he got away with, but it was once again a very impressive innings when it was most needed.

The seventh wicket stand put on 244 runs by the end of play giving England a total of 346/7. A total that should be enough to ensure the game is not lost and the series against Pakistan won. However this is England, and I’ve seen them snatch defeat from the jaws of victory from better positions than this in the past.

This was a great day of cricket that had everything that makes test cricket so special. There were two centuries scored, that together should be a series securing partnership from England. In the field there was an 18-year-old bowler in only his sixth game for his country taking six wickets with some very tight bowling.

All this shared with dad in the wonderful atmosphere of a series deciding test match, at the most storied and traditional home of the game. Sport, of any kind, really does not get much better than this.

His Tonyness announced this week that he had donated the advance and royalties of his memoirs to the Royal British Legion. The money is to help fund a new center to help the rehabilitation of injured service men and women. Unquestionably this is a very important and worthwhile cause.

However Tony Blair must be wondering what the hell he has to do to get some good press out of this. Up front it’s about $8 million, and potentially substantially more. When his donation was announced the London Times ran a headline “”Guilty” Blair gives £5m book cash to troops”. While the Times has never actually endorsed Blair or Labour outright (the paper gave no endorsement in ’97 and a conditional backing of the Tories in 2001) and has been a vocal critic of Blair over the year, the “Guilty” part of the headline seemed to sum up the mood rather well.

Over the following days the deal was questioned – would they get the full advance (yes)? Film rights? Yes. Foreign sales? Yes. What if the book did not sell? No refund to Blair. Would it be named after Blair? No. And finally would Blair take the tax relief on the donation? No, the legion would get the benefits.

So the deal was real, the money was guaranteed and still there were headlines claiming this was blood money and Blair was just clearing his conscience with it.

Unquestionably the British are a land of cynics and Blair is a global figure with a global reputation to protect. In the US there was a “huh, really?” response to the rather hostile reaction by the British papers. The Washington Post did not understand what it called the “withering response” the announcement was greeted with in the UK.

It’s simple, Blair led the country to war on a false premise, and the country has not forgotten that.

His legacy as a Prime Minister was tied so closely to Iraq and it being seen, in hindsight as a justifiable war.

The so-called “Blair Doctrine” described what a “just war” looked like. In short he felt that using preemptive action to prevent humanitarian disasters, such as genocide was the right way forward, and there is much to commend that idea. It advocated intervention for the right reasons and motives rather than for military ambitions.

In a speech in 1999 Blair proposed that five questions that should be asked:

1. Are we sure of our case?
2. Have we exhausted all diplomatic options?
3. Are there military operations we can sensibly and prudently undertake?
4. Are we prepared for the long term?
5. Do we have national interests involved?

Where the answer to all five questions is “yes” then there is a strong case for intervention.

The British generally see three conflicts in the last eleven years that this test has been applied to by the Labour government

Kosovo – probably the strongest argument for the Blair doctrine. Ethnic cleansing was halted, the Serbs removed and leaders tried for war crimes. While not totally stable today, it’s been left in better condition than in 1999. Not perfect, but it’s arguable it meets the case for intervention.

Afghanistan – The humanitarian side was a secondary consideration to the defensive war that justified regime change after 9/11. So far so good. The Taliban was routed, but al-Qaida was not eliminated. With a few exceptions the west has largely walked away. One thing the Afghanis and al-Qaida have is patience, they know the west will get tired and move away eventually. The way the British, Ottomans and Soviet Union have in the past.

Iraq – Tony Blair’s legacy in the eyes of many British people.

In 2004 Tony said of Iraq under Saddam – “Containment will not work… The terrorists have no intention of being contained. Emphatically I am not saying that every situation leads to military action. But we surely have a right to prevent the threat materialising; and we surely have a responsibility to act when a nation’s people are subjected to a regime such as Saddam’s.”

This speech represents a huge shift from the five questions that he used to lay out the Blair Doctrine. In this speech he gave sanction for the removal, by force of a dictator such as Saddam Hussein. This was a war fought based on poor intelligence and designed to stop potential future terrorist attacks. The link to the humanitarian principle is remote at best.

Blair lost a great deal of his credibility in Britain during the final years of his time in Downing Street. First by going to war with Iraq despite it not fitting his own doctrine, despite the intelligence saying that WMDs were present being questionable at best. And secondly refusing to apologize for what he did.

Since leaving office he has had no issue with using his profile and name to amass a significant personal fortune though business interests, meetings and speeches. This donation to the British Legion is seen by many as an attempt to improve his legacy with the British electorate.

The question is was this really a cynical attempt to wipe the slate clean, or is he honestly trying to makes amends? As someone who voted Labour in ’97 and ’01 I hope it’s the latter.

Finally, to answer the earlier question about what Blair has to do to catch a break from the British electorate. Saying you were wrong to start this war would be a good place to start.