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If only PD James had been on the Chilcot committee. After six hours of watching Tony Blair effortlessly deflect and disarm his interrogators at the Queen Elizabeth II centre on Friday, how could one not be struck by the contrast with the courteous evisceration that James recently performed on the BBC’s director-general?

Instead of the pointless Baroness Prashar of Runnymede, whose style is to scowl, put on a cross voice ... and then ask the most puffball questions imaginable, we could have had Baroness James of Holland Park, who under a patina of deceptive deference would have used her novelist’s grasp of human psychology to get to the heart of a matter that goes beyond military strategy and mere politics.

For although the former prime minister continues to...