Sketchup: Geoff Hoon at the Iraq inquiry
A selection of lines from parliamentary sketch-writers.
Geoff Hoon's appearance in front of the Iraq inquiry received little praise from those lobbly correspondents present.
Simon Carr in the Independent says that the former secretary of state for defence was less than inspiring in front of the committee:
"The man is a triumph in the art of camouflage. He's so much part of the background you need special eyes to see that he's there."
The Times' Ann Treneman agrees, saying that she got the impression that, despite being defence secretary at the time when Britain went to war with Iraq, Mr Hoon wasn't really there:
"He came across as a genial, stolid, middle-of-the-road manager of, say, an insurance office. He is a lawyer but even that seems too flashy. It seemed impossible that, only a fortnight ago, this man had tried to lead a coup against Gordon Brown. It is actually a miracle he showed up for that."
On Mr Hoon's insistence that he wasn't privy to any of the meetings between Tony Blair and George Bush, the Guardian's Simon Hoggart sums it up succinctly:
"Like Manuel, he knew nothing."
Elsewhere, Gordon Brown was holding a news conference with the new president of the European Union. Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail says that Mr Van Rompuy resembles a driving instructor:
"You know the type: stoical to the point of inscrutable, near-silent, there for the ride. From time to time he slipped his right hand discreetly into his jacket and extracted a lean ballpoint pen from his breast pocket, silently to make tiny notes. 'Three-point turn less than perfect', perhaps. Or, 'does not look enough in the rear-view mirror'."
Links in full
Simon Carr | Independent | A moment of clarity that could put Blair in a spot of bother
Ann Treneman | Times | Geoff Hoon, the political Macavity, tells Chilcot he was never there
Simon Hoggart | Guardian | Trying not to answer the question
Quentin Letts | Daily Mail | At least Van Rumpy's english was better than Gordon's
