Live coverage as Sir John Chilcot unveils his report into the Iraq war. Plus all the day’s other political news as Tory leadership runners go down to three
8.11am BST
Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Claire. I will be writing the blog today with my colleague Peter Walker.
Journalists have just been admitted to the “lock in” at the Queen Elizabeth conference centre in London where they have three hours to read the report before the embargo is lifted and the first stories about what it contains can be published at 11am. Sir John Chilcot will also make a statement about its contents then.
Behind this door is the #Chilcot report. Press heading in for three hours of speed reading http://pic.twitter.com/4sqMJX7B4x
The press wait for access to #Chilcot report at Westminster We see it at 8 http://pic.twitter.com/0cVKd2i0L8
7.54am BST
We are likely to hear directly from Tony Blair later today, after the publication of the Chilcot findings.
Blair is planning to hold a press conference to deliver a robust response to the findings. He will insist the Shia-Sunni split in Iraq, one of the driving forces of the continuing violence, preceded the invasion and was not the result of the disruption created by the war.
He will claim that Iran and al-Qaida had a role in creating the insecurity inside Iraq after the invasion. At same time, he will acknowledge he is now more cautious about the consequences of unleashing dangerous forces when a strongman such as Saddam Hussein is removed.
He will again apologise for the mistaken intelligence about Saddam’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, but will point to evidence that the Iraqi leader sought to mislead the United Nations weapons inspectors and his own military in order to strengthen his political position inside Iraq.
Blair insists he gave no secret irrevocable pledges to Bush that the UK would go to war and any commitments of solidarity were subject to political support. His attempts to secure a second UN resolution that set tests Saddam needed to meet so as to avoid invasion is presented by Blair as proof there was no pre-ordained invasion.
7.49am BST
Mordaunt is asked about reports today that Andrea Leadsom’s banking career isn’t quite as billed.
A reminder from today’s morning briefing of today’s report in the Times, drawing on comments from a former colleague of Leadsom on Reaction:
Andrea Leadsom has no experience as an investment banker … During 10 years at the investment fund Invesco Perpetual, from 1999 to 2009, she did not have any role in managing funds or advising clients. Despite the title ‘senior investment officer and head of corporate governance’ she only held approval from the financial services regulator – required for any roles dealing with funds or clients – for a three-month period from December 2002 to February 2003.
Anyone who reads Andrea’s CV and attaches a lot of weight to that particular role may actually be under some slight misapprehension as to what it was she actually did.
totally bogus article that she [Leadsom] was not given the right to reply to.
This is a concerted effort to rubbish a stellar career and imply she was just making the tea.
Yes, she has … at Barclays.
She was running a fund. She was also managing the global banking network.
7.46am BST
Two Tory MPs – Penny Mordaunt, a supporter of Andrea Leadsom, and Ed Vaizey, a Michael Gove fan – are on the Today programme to, in essence, argue that their candidate ought to be the second name on the ballot to party members.
Mordaunt says:
We have a huge responsibility to put forward the two best candidates – it’s party leader but it’s also the prime minister.
A final with two women in it would be very exciting but it’s got to be on merit.
Michael Gove is the most experienced of the two candidates vying for second place on the ballot.
What motivates Michael … is about social justice, reaching out to those people who’ve been left behind.
He is very close to the chancellor and the prime minister … I think that’s important.
They’ll trust a man who was prepared to make that decision … He felt he [Johnson] wasn’t the right person to be prime minister.
7.31am BST
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, Karen Thornton, whose son Lee was killed in Iraq in 2006, said she remained convinced that Tony Blair had exaggerated intelligence about Iraq’s capabilities and should face a trial for war crimes:
If it is proved that he lied then obviously he should be held accountable for it … He shouldn’t be allowed to just get away with it.
Nobody’s going to held to account and that’s so wrong … I think the people who lied should be held to account.
We just want the truth.
7.11am BST
With John Chilcot publishing – after seven years of inquiry – his report into the war in Iraq, we can expect/hope that the rest of the day will be relatively quiet. The world of politics does sometimes remember how to do respectful. This might be one of those days.
I think, given the seriousness of the situation, the quicker we have a new and strong prime minister in place, the better.
I think the message I have – optimism and hope about Britain’s bright future outside the European Union – is one that is shared by many Conservative members and voters, and indeed by the majority of the country …
I think that they [party members] should have a choice between two candidates of experience, two candidates who have delivered in government departments, and above all they should have a choice between one candidate who argued that we should remain in the European Union and one candidate who argued we should leave.
Andrea Leadsom has no experience as an investment banker … During 10 years at the investment fund Invesco Perpetual, from 1999 to 2009, she did not have any role in managing funds or advising clients. Despite the title ‘senior investment officer and head of corporate governance’ she only held approval from the financial services regulator – required for any roles dealing with funds or clients – for a three-month period from December 2002 to February 2003.
Anyone who reads Andrea’s CV and attaches a lot of weight to that particular role may actually be under some slight misapprehension as to what it was she actually did.
The TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, or her predecessor, Brendan Barber, are seen as potential chairs for the negotiations, which are aimed at averting an immediate challenge to Corbyn’s leadership and “cooling the temperature”. The role is likened by some senior party figures to that of Gen John de Chastelain, who oversaw the disarmament process in Northern Ireland.
As we were… @LadyBasildon & @SteveTheQuip still not attending Shadow Cabinet – a position supported by our Lords frontbench team & Group
Naz Shah stands out as someone who has been prepared to apologise to the Jewish community at a local and national level, and make efforts to learn from her mistakes. In that regard, her reinstatement today seems appropriate and we would hope for no repeat of past errors.
Across the Iraqi capital, there is little sense that the long-delayed Chilcot report into Britain’s decision to go to war will change anything. Thirteen years after the invasion, the country is still reeling from the upheaval unleashed by the war. What was envisaged by planners in London and Washington to be a seamless transition from dictatorship to democracy has proved to be anything but.
A tussle for control of post-Saddam Iraq has barely relented, and continues to ravage the country’s finances, communities and social fabric. Citizens say the relentless grind has become a ‘forever war’ that could rumble on over decades, ensuring that communities torn apart by sectarianism remain at odds for generations.
The ‘strong man’ notion of leadership by which Corbyn appears all too often to be judged is not … just a matter of a macho style. It is embedded in the nature of the UK’s unwritten constitution and the immense but opaque power that it gives to the executive: extensive powers of patronage, powers to go to war be ready to press the nuclear button, negotiate treaties of various kinds and in many ways preserve the continuity of the British state …
His credibility as prime minister, a different kind of prime minister from the current model, would require an effective challenge to the centralised nature of power in our political system. A challenge that would need to be made now, while in opposition, with extensive popular participation.
Prior to Brexit, Le Pen enjoyed a measure of exclusivity in being France’s Eurosceptic-in-chief. Both mainstream parties, President François Hollande’s Socialists and Nicolas Sarkozy’s Les Républicains, were equivocal about the EU and avoided advancing hard positions on the bloc’s future.
But with Brexit, France has a chance to reassert its role in the bloc, and the mainstream positions have shifted dramatically. All leading candidates for the Right’s presidential nomination want to roll back Brussels’ powers, give more say to national parliaments and ultimately vote on EU reform in a vast, bloc-wide referendum. The only difference between that and Le Pen’s proposal? They do not want to give the French an option to leave.
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My theory … is that he was in for the start of the two-day debate on Brexit and its consequences. He’s clearly heard that the government has no direction.
Labour still has no shadow attorney general. Lucky there’s no legally tricky negotiations coming up.
6.53am BST
Good morning. Today’s live coverage will focus on the long-awaited publication of the Chilcot report on Britain’s role in the war in Iraq, as well as scooping up the day’s other political goings-on.
With so much news to sift through, I’m divorcing the early Chilcot news – the report itself is published at 11am – from the rest of the day’s developments; the regular morning briefing (covering leadership and Brexit latest) will follow this post.
I made very clear right at the start of the inquiry that if we came across decisions or behaviour which deserved criticism then we wouldn’t shy away from making it. And, indeed, there have been more than a few instances where we are bound to do that.
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Sig Nordal 