There will be wry smiles as Chilcot wades into political waters

Sir John Chilcot’s decision to change his mind and take evidence from the prime minister not many weeks shy of a general election reminds you that it’s not just the politicians who feel on trial here.

When Nick Clegg and David Cameron started the cry for Gordon Brown to go to the inquiry this side of a general election some on the inquiry saw this as reinforcing their initial decision to push most current holders of high office the other side of a general election to avoid turning their considered inquiry into a political circus.

But as the days have passed the inquiry has had to ponder its own reputation.

After initial hammering from some quarters, press and political, they have settled into calmer and occasionally respectful coverage. Why look a gift horse that helps the inquiry’s own branding in the proverbial?

There will be wry smiles on the faces of some of Tony Blair’s closest supporters who have privately mocked what they see as Gordon Brown’s incompetence and disloyalty in holding an inquiry and dragging their spiritual leader through a public interrogation in the run-up to a general election.

Now see how you like it, will be the comradely thought for the day in those quarters this morning.

Does it matter to the election? Gordon Brown’s closest team ever since 2005 have had a very particular focus on winning back the voters who deserted Labour, mainly for the Lib Dems, over Iraq in the 2005 election. Win THEM back, they argued, and it truly was “game on” for the next election.

The more candid amongst them will tell you that much of the constitutional policy waving – which started with Mr Brown’s campaign launch for the leadership in 2007 and will culminate with an electoral reform referendum 2010 manifesto promise – and Gordon Brown’s painstaking association with withdrawal from Iraq (remember how central it was to the aborted 2007 election campaign) were intended to catch the eye of exactly these voters, the lost tribe of 2005.

But now the same voters are getting a near daily reminder of the characters and issues that drove them away from Labour.

The Lib Dems, eagerly courting cameras outside the Inquiry on big story days, are convinced it must work to their benefit, even if time has taken the heat out of the issue.

Sir John Chilcot has, even if he didn’t want to, waded into political waters … but probably feels it helps the good standing of his own inquiry and the politicians had left him little choice.