Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq wat inquiry enters day three as Sir Christopher Meyer takes to the stand as key witness, writes the Channel 4 News Iraq Inquiry Blogger.
Good morning and welcome to day three of the Iraq inquiry. It’s probably safe to assume that today’s evidence may be rather different – in style at least – from what we’ve heard thus far.
Not least because the witness himself famously wrote that Number 10 told him on his appointment: “We want you to get up the arse of the White House and stay there.”
Sir Christopher Meyer served as British Ambassador to the United States between 1997 and 2003 and his tell-all book about the experience DC Confidential ruffled not a few Westminster collars.
One MP even tabled an early day motion deploring its “betrayal of trust in the promulgation of such scurrilous memoirs” that caused “real damage … to the essential relationships between ministers, diplomats, and their advisers.”
Suffice to say that this blogger at least does not expect a similar oeuvre from Sir William Ehrman (whose evidence yesterday is now online at iraqinquiry.org.uk/transcripts) on his retirement.
The title of today’s session is The Transatlantic Relationship and judging by DC Confidential it was a very special relationship. Of PM Blair’s first official trip to the US to meet President Clinton, Meyer wrote: “The whole No 10 team, from the PM down, pulsed with ill-suppressed excitement.”
In keeping with other disclosures in the memoir, your blogger promises to at least try to establish whether Sir Christopher is wearing his trademark red socks, although they’re less confident of being able to reveal if any of the committee are wearing “ball-crushingly tight dark-blue corduroys.”
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