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At first it was set to sit in secret, which would have effectively guaranteed that the Chilcot committee of the great and the grand would prove a damp squib. Howls of protest soon forced Gordon Brown to remove the wraps from the Iraq inquiry. But even then it remained tainted by the suggestion that he himself would appear only after the voters had returned their judgment on him. Now, after the adroit application of Liberal Democrat pressure, the prime minister and this establishment probe have belatedly agreed they should meet before polling day.

Not before time. Sir John Chilcot's initial hints that keeping above the political fray necessitated the saving of prime ministerial blushes suggested a big misunderstanding of his task. He is not required to write a history book but to...