Mr Tony Blair endeavoured to shift the focus of British politics away from Iraq yesterday when he attacked the Tories at the Scottish Labour Party conference. But it will not go away, having been dramatically revived by Ms Clare Short's assertion that Britain bugged Mr Kofi Annan's phone at the United Nations in the run-up to the war.
Yesterday it emerged that other senior figures, including Dr Hans Blix, the chief UN arms inspector at the time, were very probably spied upon too. Indeed this is regarded as a routine aspect of international politics at times of crisis, directed just as much against friends as enemies. It should probably be assumed to be a standing feature of high level diplomacy as much in the economic as the political domain, given that so much now hangs on trade and investment decisions.
There is a great contrast between such realist assumptions, publicised after an event like this, and Mr Blair's angry denunciation of Ms Short's irresponsibility in admitting it. He was careful not to confirm what she said, in order to preserve the integrity of his intelligence services. But his anger shows he is fully aware of how such revelations undermine trust between allies and friends, not to mention international organisations like the UN.
The more substantive issue involved concerns the reliability of intelligence on Iraq and in particular whether it possessed weapons of mass destruction capable of being mobilised within 45 minutes, which Mr Blair asserted was a sufficient reason to go to war. Openly or subliminally, voters will ask how it was possible to get the weapons issue so wrong if such technology is available for clandestine surveillance. That brings questions of political judgment into the foreground. They include Mr Blair's close relationship with President Bush, whose election campaign this year will keep the spotlight inescapably on Iraq.
Mr Blair faces a tricky decision on how to respond to Ms Short. Should he try to remove the party whip from her she could become a focus for opposition within it to his continued leadership. Should she be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act he will alienate a large and growing human rights constituency. There is increasing pressure on him to confirm that what Ms Short says is true, now that other UN figures say they too were bugged. This issue divides him more from left-wing than right-wing opinion, which means the Conservatives may not make much headway from it. But under Mr Michael Howard's leadership that party has become a more capable and credible opposition.