Mr Tony Blair has emerged triumphantly from the Hutton inquiry into the events surrounding the suicide of Dr David Kelly. He is vindicated by its conclusions that the government did not leak Dr Kelly's name - nor "sex up" its intelligence report on whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction mobilisable in 45 minutes, as the BBC reported.
But this triumph comes only one day after his political vulnerability was revealed by a party revolt over university fees headed off at the last minute by his likely successor, Mr Gordon Brown. And the Hutton report is published as it becomes daily more clear that Iraq did not have such weapons of mass destruction - the political basis on which Britain went to war.
Only time will tell whether Mr Blair and his government emerge stronger and more creditably from these two days, undoubtedly their most challenging since Labour came to power in 1997. There can be no denying that Lord Hutton's report exonerates Mr Blair from deception and duplicity, as he put it forcefully in the House of Commons yesterday. But this must not be allowed to obscure the larger question of whether the British people were deceived in going to war by faulty political judgments based on inaccurate intelligence.
Mr Blair showed courage and determination in winning the Commons vote on university top-up fees. But in doing so he has antagonised a large section of his party. They believe the proposal will increase inequality by restricting university education more and more to those who can afford it. They may now be more ready to contemplate Mr Brown as a successor.
Journalists and the media in Britain do not come well out of the Hutton report. It is scathing about the BBC's editorial procedures, checks and balances in handling such a sensitive topic. These failings took from the potentially more momentous story about the credibility of the announced reasons for going to war - which Lord Hutton said he has not examined. The resignation of the BBC chairman and the apology from its director-general bear out Lord Hutton's strictures.
These criticisms of the most respected British news organisation raise profound questions about its authority. One of the major protagonists in this drama, Mr Alastair Campbell, yesterday raised more general issues about the partisanship and declining standards of journalism in Britain. He says "it is usually not the case in our media that facts are sacred and comment is free. News and comment are virtually fused" in many sections of the British media. These are series issues for journalists in Britain - indeed, in Ireland and elsewhere, to acknowledge.
Mr Blair's political fate in this crisis has many implications for Ireland. No modern British prime minister has been involved with British-Irish relations in such a sustained fashion. He has come well out of a trying week but the ultimate arbiters of his exoneration - and the naming of Dr Kelly - will be the court of public opinion.