The torture of Iraqi detainees tshocked even supporters of the liberation of Iraq. Along with Guantanamo they did much to undermine the perceived moral legitimacy of the United States’ post 9/11 response. The photos were truly shocking.

Peter Oborne this morning reveals that despite protestations to the contrary, Blair had received reports of human rights violations seven weeks before the infamous photos became public.

Yet when the news of the atrocities came to light in the Press, Tony Blair played dumb and merely expressed surprise. He told MPs that neither he nor any member of his government had known about the barbaric scenes. ‘It is not correct that ministers or I were aware of those allegations in respect of American troops,’ the prime minister told the then Tory leader Michael Howard.

It now appears that in fact a shocked Bill Rammell, then a junior Foreign Office minister, had been briefed during a meeting in Geneva by the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

This meeting took place seven weeks before the atrocities became public knowledge and Abu Ghraib became a byword for American brutality. To his credit, Rammell says he was so shocked by the revelations that he immediately convened an emergency meeting of Foreign Office officials. In his statement, he said: ‘I was assured that defence ministers were already aware of the allegations and that actions were being taken by the Ministry of Defence to deal with the allegations, which was the case.’

So his claim that ministers were not aware is untrue according to the testimony of a minister who did know. The inference is that Blair must have known as well.

This picture was taken at St. Paul’s just before lunch today after the service to commemorate the efforts of British armed forces who served in Northern Ireland, remembering those who gave their lives.

So Blair’s private memo on his thoughts on Brown’s strategy and tactics has entered the public domain. Cui bono?

Miliband is the clear beneficiary. Who was on the distribution list? Bets are that Miliband, Blair’s anointed one, was on the list so a “friend” of his could have passed it to the Mail. Mandelson might likely be another member of the “A Team” that would have seen it, so to would Ben Wegg Prosser, who if memory serves Guido correctly, managed previously to get the “leave the stage with them wanting more” memo to Blair onto the front page of the Mail.

The tone of Blair’s memo is brutally frank, he prefaces it by saying a toned down more gentle version will be sent to Brown – clearly he knows Gordon can’t handle the truth…

Thanks to Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace you can have “Tea with Tony“ on Monday. Go on, you know you want to…

UPDATE : The more eagle-eyed have noticed that Wendi Deng is Tony’s MySpace friend as well as Rupert’s wife and recipient of email from Gordon. Mark Pack over on LibDemVoice reckons Murdoch’s Sun bashes Facebook and boosts his rival MySpace. No news however as to bear activity in the forests…

Having been trying to figure out why on earth Labour would think to use the clunking fist imagery for their Crewe campaign. A co-conspirator has come up with the answer:

“Look, Gordon. You know I’m a regular sort of guy. You know how much I want you to succeed. Why don’t you try…” [He presses the mute button because Cherie is giggling too loudly]).

Tony made him do it. The “clunking fist” was his image idea after all….

During tension between the two political leaders Julius Nyerere summoned Nkomo then Mugabe to talks to try and reconcile them. When Mugabe went in and was offered a seat, Mugabe refused and went up to Nyerere’s face and told him “If you think I’m going to sit right where that fat bastard just sat, you’ll have to think again”. As a result of this strained relationship with the two, fighting between ZANLA and ZIPRA soldiers only increased and widened the gap between the two men.

Mr Prescott, who will stand down as an MP at the next election, also tells of more comical encounters, including the time the then Chancellor insisted on having a larger chair at a peace-making dinner. Mr Blair reportedly said: “I’m used to Gordon looking down on me.”

It has just come to Guido’s attention that Claire Short was on Al Jazeera earlier this month calling for Tony Blair to be arrested for War Crimes. That is her off the Christmas Card list…

click to see video

With Labour now 18% behind in the polls on levels last seen at the height of Thatcherism, it is perhaps worth taking a moment to reflect. In his valedictory speech to the Labour Party’s 2006 conference, Tony told Gordon what to do if he was having trouble defeating Dave’s Tories. Gordon should heed the advice…

It must be a bit galling for the Brownies to discover that Cameron not only as expected wins over “toffs” (in the vernacular of Kevin Maguire’s fantasy Beano world) – the breakdown is now showing Cameron ahead in the lower D & E income groups in England. Even in Maguire’s North East home region (not in his adopted millionaire’s colony of Richmond) the Tories are more popular than Brown. That is Labour’s heartland, if they can’t win there, they can’t win anywhere.

The SNP are hammering the corrupt Scottish Labour Party, now if only the LibDems could pull some more votes from Labour, the anti-Brown vote will reach 2 to1 in England. Guido always said the Labour Party would come to miss Blair, watching Portillo last night on Thatcher it was interesting how even the dripping wet Chris Patten regretted the manner of getting rid of her – in hindsight it would have been better to let the voters decide rather than disaffected MPs.

Similarly many Labour MPs in marginals will, come the general election, rue the day they swapped a proven three times winner for a dithering, cowardly, psychologically flawed weirdo.

Not content with bringing peace to the Middle East Tony is advising the President of Rwanda on “institutional capacity building”. Liz Lloyd, who was deputy chief of staff under Jonathan Powell in Blair’s Downing Street, his former private secretary Kate Gross and David Easton, (ex McKinsey) are holed up in the Aga Khan’s Hotel Serena where the presidential suite goes for $2,000 a night.

Guido is worried that Blair is succumbing to the Jimmy Carter delusion, that he can solve the worlds ills. To be fair Jimmy Carter has in fact done a lot of good and it hasn’t cost the taxpayers a penny. Blair on the other hand has his office subsidised by the taxpayers through the FCO.

That the PM who sold more peerages than any other in history is advising President Kagame on anti-corruption issues, does have some ironies. Admittedly he is doing it for free. On balance Guido commends Blair for this, well us Catholics do have to do more than just Hail Mary’s for penance…

Incidentally the Blair Foundation at first denied this story for some reason. They claimed that Liz Lloyd did not work for the Blair Foundation, which is technically correct. Old habits die hard, eh?