Nick Clegg capitalises on Iraq issue

Does the Iraq war still matter in the evolving party politics of 2010? Both the Guardian's editorial and my colleague Jonathan Freedland pondered this question today in the wake of Alastair Campbell's all-day session yesterday in front of the Chilcot inquiry. Both writers thought that, for all Iraq's immensity, the verdict was not proven. But they both might have been surprised at how quickly the Iraq issue has in fact forced its way up the agenda in the House of Commons today. Midway through a second successive bullish PMQs performance by Gordon Brown – the outside world may not be noticing Brown's improved showings but Labour MPs are – the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg rose and asked Brown whether he will now give his own evidence to the Chilcot committee before – rather than after – the general election. Brown responded by saying that Sir John Chilcot was in charge of his own procedure and had asked him to give his evidence after the inquiry's expected period of election purdah – and added: "I have nothing to hide on this matter." This shouldn't be a question for Chilcot, Clegg retorted, but for Brown's own conscience. It was he who signed the cheques for the invasion. Later on, Lib Dem MP David Heath had another go. Did Brown regret any of the decisions he made on Iraq? Was he prepared to say sorry? I stand by the decisions we made, Brown replied. Who would have thought, as Andrew Neil later observed on the BBC's Daily Politics, that we would still be talking about Iraq in January 2010? To which one answer is that Neil can't have been reading many of the online debates about the subject here and on many other sites that have been going on for as long as some of us can remember. A more interesting dimension, though, is why Iraq has risen to the top of the party political agenda now, and whether it really is an issue. The immediate reason for Clegg's pressure is obvious. Campbell rather carefully pointed out to the inquiry yesterday that Brown was at an awful lot of the key meetings – not just cabinet meetings but other gatherings too – in the run-up to Iraq. He shared some of the responsibility for the decision and he knows a lot about it first-hand. If Brown was to be called early, pre-election, by Chilcot, then the hearing would be massively reported and, whether or not Brown gave a plausible account of himself, the occasion would help to root Brown in the tarnished Iraq policy of Tony Blair. Clegg clearly sees this as a win-win-win opportunity. If Brown refuses to volunteer – and as Charles Kennedy pointed out later in conversation with Neil, he could and should have been asked to do so – then he becomes a man with something to hide. If Brown does go before Chilcot, he either emerges as a man who shares responsibility for Iraq (as he accepted today) or as a man who went along with a policy he now rejects (if he tries to distance himself from Blair). Whichever way you look at it, this is good for the Lib Dems. It reminds voters that they were right on Iraq and the other parties were wrong. It shows leftwing, antiwar and ex-Labour voters that Clegg, sometimes depicted as a rightwinger, is alive to their concerns. And it draws attention to the wider positioning that Clegg sketched out earlier this week , of a more limited but distinctive set of Lib Dem campaign principles. Iraq is not going to be a dominant issue in the 2010 election. It wasn't even a dominant issue in the 2005 contest, when it might have been, though it certainly had an effect in some seats, especially university seats, and it underlay a lot of the waning enthusiasm for Blair. But it will still have some impact this time around, nevertheless. It is bound to be a net gainer for the Lib Dems, even if it is not at the heart of the party's pitch, and it is bound to be a net loser for Labour and even the Tories among voters who are particularly sensitive on the issue. There's life in this epic subject yet. Which is why I'd be astonished if Brown was on the phone to Chilcot this afternoon trying to schedule an early hearing .