In her letter of resignation as a Labour MP, Clare Short cited the "half-truths and deceits" she said that Mr Blair had used to win support for the war in Iraq and the way she said the Labour chief whip had tried to silence her.The cost of the misjudgements that took the US and Britain becomes clearer every day. Last night, British troops were on stand-by to return to Amara, a city they had handed over to Iraqi forces only months before. The day when Iraqis will be able to ensure the country's security alone - Mr Blair's benchmark for withdrawal - seems very far away.Yet the one acknowledgement that has not been heard from either leader is the one that would make all the difference: a belated acceptance that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. It is the fastest-selling show in the National Gallery's history, a once in a lifetime chance to survey the career of one of the world's greatest artists. More than 14,000 people snapped up tickets to Velazquez (1599-1660) before it opened, and 3,500 people poured through the doors in the first two days it was open to the public. Charles Saumarez Smith, the gallery's director, jokingly admitted it was good to discover how many new influential friends he had as curators from across Europe tried to bag an early view.This weekend will be the first major test of crowd control techniques meant to shuttle 220 visitors into the show every half-hour.The exhibition takes the nine paintings in the National Gallery's own collection - the largest collection outside the Museo del Prado in Spain - as its core but expands it with works from the Prado and other museums.It spans the career of Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez, from his beginnings in Seville to his appointment as court painter to King Philip IV in Madrid. Given that Gen Dannatt's comments included the observation that we had "effectively kicked the door in" in Iraq and the inference that foreign forces were doing more harm than good, full agreement seemed improbable.The balance of authority, however, is now such that Mr Blair could not risk challenging the general, lest he reopen questions about his own culpability. It was not clear which particular aspect of the parallel Mr Bush was accepting: the pre-election timing, the moment at which possible defeat had to be faced, or something else But the taboo was broken.
The cost of Iraq to Mr Bush in congressional seats will be evident in a little more than two weeks.Here in Britain, Mr Blair chose to side-step an open rift with the top brass by saying that he agreed with assessments made by the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt. They add up to an admission that the war was a terrible mistake.In a subsequent television interview - rare in itself - Mr Bush broke the taboo on comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam, vaguely agreeing that there might be parallels between the Tet offensive then and the upsurge in violence in Iraq now. In the United States, James Baker, long-term ally of the Bush clan, respected statesman and king-maker, has floated a number of unmentionables. They include a phased withdrawal from Iraq and direct talks with Syria and Iran. But, as was painfully clear at this week's Prime Minister's Questions, the war is eating away at what credibility he retains.Iraq has made Mr Bush and Mr Blair isolated figures, before their home audiences and on the global stage.
The balance sheet for those who invaded Iraq has now slipped incontrovertibly into the negative. Would President Bush, we wonder, have been so confident about invading Iraq had he known in advance the likely cost in American lives - or the cost to his own political fortunes? On this side of the Atlantic, the Prime Minister still insists that he believes the invasion was justified because it removed Saddam Hussein, and Saddam - even without WMD - was still a threat to the world. But in the overall equation the number of coalition dead is indicative, because it is not something that can be guessed at, massaged or reclassified with a view to making the overall picture look better. This was the week in which the costly folly of the Iraq war was finally made manifest, even to those hitherto least inclined to see the truth. Perhaps by coincidence, it was also the week in which the number of US and British lives lost passed the number of those killed on 11 September 2001. Not that this is all about numbers: it is about ruined lives, ruined families and ruined countries It is also about honesty.
We, the consumers, must disabuse them of that notion by buying more of the home-grown varieties on offer And what better time to start than this Apple Day?. Supermarkets prefer this to the unsightly - but entirely harmless - blemishes sometimes found on British apples.But supermarkets cannot take all of the blame. The big chains believe they are giving their customers what they want. This appeals to supermarkets, which are always looking to buy cheaply and in bulk. Foreign growers are also very liberal in their use of pesticides, a practice that produces more "perfect" looking fruit.
Not only is this bad for British orchards, but flying in the fruit creates thousands of tons of unnecessary carbon emissions.But why do supermarkets favour apples from outside the UK? Apple production abroad prioritises quantity over quality. These mainly come from mainland Europe and the US, but some are from places as far away as Chile and China. But the company's progress towards this goal has been less than impressive.The stark fact is that the UK now imports more than 70 per cent of the apples it consumes. Only 30 varieties of British apple are grown for commercial order, and only a third of the apples sold in the "big five" chains at the height of the British apple season last year were British. The dominant grocery chain, Tesco, has promised to double its sales of UK apples. The renewed popularity of cider may have prompted more commercial cider apple orchards to be planted of late. But the traditional British eating apple is still in crisis. A lack of demand from supermarkets is certainly an important factor behind this trend.