Thursday 15 July, 2004, 15:37 BST

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What the Butler Saw

Nothing

Lord Butler had always wanted to be on Tony Blair's Christmas card list

After the Hutton Report and the US Senate Intelligence Committee, another government-appointed investigation has found the government blameless of wholesale manipulation of pre-Iraq intelligence.

The report highlighted major failings in intelligence reports, criticised the "high proportion" of sources MI6 failed to check, confirmed that the 'Dodgy' Dossier was more suspect than a three-week old kipper, and found that the 45-minute claim should have been properly explained.

Lord Butler concluded that none of this was anyone's fault and that "shit happens."

"I would point the finger at someone," explained Lord Butler, "But that would be beyond the remit of my investigation." When quizzed on this 'remit', the peer seemed uncertain: "Something about stating the obvious, wasn't it, Tony?"

However, the jubilation of Blair and the Intelligence Services is not shared by anyone else. The Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party both refused to support the Butler report shortly after it was commissioned, on the grounds that its remit was too narrow to allow it to blame anyone. "With such a narrow scope," said Tory Spokesman Marvin Wilcox "Everyone knew this would say there was no-one specifically to blame. So we thought we'd duck out before the, er, whitewash hit the fan."

The happiest reader of the report must be Tony Blair himself, who not only finds himself exonerated yet again, but also has a chance to change his opinion again on the reasons for war in Iraq.

Asked by Michael Howard whether or not he had any credibility left, Blair replied "The public will have to trust me now! I've been cleared by two separate enquiries! That'll teach the swine to go marching in the streets and pretending they've got a say in how the country works!"