Messrs. Ed have something to say.

So both Messrs Ed have tried to enhance their chances of being elected as the new leader of the Labour Party by saying they "condemn Iraq invasion"

At least that's what it says in the Mail. It says the same in other newspapers too, so it must be right.

If the invasion of Iraq was so wrong Mr Edward Miliband should explain why he voted "strongly against an inquiry". He voted so strongly that each time the matter was raised in Parliament - he said, "No!"

And Mr Edward Balls? Well, he wasn't an MP at the time but according to John Rentoul he still managed to play a part.

Though not yet elected as an MP, Mr Balls – as Mr Brown’s adviser – was party to top level discussions after attempts to get a second UN Security Council resolution failed.

“I was in the room when a decision was taken that we would say it was that dastardly Frenchman, Jacques Chirac, who had scuppered it. It wasn’t really true, you know. I said to Gordon: 'I know why you’re doing this, but you’ll regret it’. France is a very important relationship for us.”

Oh!

Good job M. Chirac didn't ever get to hear about it, could have soured relationships between Britain and France.

Ah! Oops!

Even though he is no longer President of France, M. Chirac is still very important, and probably keeps an eye out for what people in other countries are saying about him and his country. Clever of Mr Ed Balls to put something like that in the newspapers.

But, we've heard this buck-passing somewhere before, because the ahem, "Credit Crunch" was America's fault. What's the betting it was a useful thing to do, handy get-out clause sort of thing.

But okay chaps. You've had your little joke. It's time to be serious. We know from Mr Blair that there were no 'weapons of mass desctruction' and we know Mr Brown told at least one lot of lies to both Chilcot and to Parliament. It doesn't stretch the imagination to think there might have been others that haven't yet come to light.

So, what do we know?

In Britain we're never really told the whole story about military casualties, so let's see what CNN has to say about Iraq

There have been 4,718 coalition deaths --
4,402 Americans,
2 Australians,
1 Azerbaijani,
179 Britons,
13 Bulgarians,
1 Czech,
7 Danes,
2 Dutch,
2 Estonians,
1 Fijian,
5 Georgians,
1 Hungarian,
33 Italians,
1 Kazakh,
3 Latvians,
22 Poles,
3 Romanians,
5 Salvadoran,
4 Slovaks,
1 South Korean,
11 Spaniards,
2 Thai
18 Ukrainians
-- in the Iraq war as of May 14, 2010, according to a CNN count.

The list below is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose deaths have been reported by their country's governments. The list also includes 14 U.S. Defense Department civilian employees.

At least 31,810 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon.

The BBC only tells us that there were 179 British military fatalities. Guessing, by using similar proportions to the US military death:casualties then perhaps 1,293 British troops were seriously injured.

The Iraq Body Count Project (IBC) estimates there have been 95,888 – 104,595 violent civilian deaths as a result of the conflict. Other sources tell a different story, with ORB estimating over a million violent deaths as a result of the conflict.

There were many demonstrations against the Iraq War, with millions of people taking to the streets all round the world

All those people involved in a war. All those lives lost, all those injuries.

And Messrs Balls and Miliband reckon it was all a bit of a mistake.

Could they say the same in front of David Kelly's family?

So, maybe it'll be post-meritocratic and not a 'white [man] in their 40s' Diane Abbot for leader.

That'll be fun.

....