The Sketch: Lack of enemy fire in the Commons allows Blair to spin his charming web of war rhetoric

The missing Prime Minister has intrigued us all. Ever since he went to Washington he's kept out of the Commons. Hamlet has been playing continuously for a week without the Prince.

Normally, after every Euro-conference where he's been spun around the Franco-German axis like a piece of strimmer cord, he returns to give an account of his personal triumph. So the Washington trip must have been very bad indeed.

All we know is that the war has not been going totally according to plan, absolutely according to plan, exactly according to plan as he insisted last week. You may not remember, but Downing Street sold us the war on the basis that if it lasted three days no one would be surprised. Now, 130,000 new troops are suddenly being committed. No one asked whether that was totally, absolutely, exactly part of the plan. Why not?

Nor did anyone ask clearly enough who had responsibility for last Friday's marketplace blast. This was the missile of which Robert Fisk found fragments. It seems it was one of ours. Mr Blair tried – and succeeded – in conflating two missile disasters, blaming both on Saddam Hussein. Why did no one object?

The Prime Minister's charm must not be under-rated. It is a deadly weapon. He underplayed his part so well yesterday, with such restraint, such a deadpan humour that no one had the heart to attack him, though goodness knows there is cause to do so.

The question several MPs asked was this: Who is going to be running Iraq when the war's over? Is it the Americans? Is it us? Is it the United Nations?

No, it's the Iraqi people themselves, he said, to groans. There will be a pre-interim administration of American governors ("Please discount what you read in the newspapers about this," he asked us. We should note that's not a denial, nor even an indication of how much we should discount the reports). Then they get an interim United Nations administration. Then an Iraqi one. That will be pretty interim as well, until another Saddam rises to hold the ring.

Should the UN itself be reformed, he was asked. Ah, no, what we need is "a deeper consensus at a global level of what needs to be done". Is this well-meaning piffle leading us down another cul-de-sac? Mr Blair tells us there is a settled view right across the world that the two-state solution is the only way that the Israel-Palestine conflict will be resolved. Yet it is hardly achieving the desired result. On the contrary: Israel is building a wall to keep the Palestinians out.

Mr Blair has failed to charm the French, the Germans, the weapons inspectors and the Iraqis. How will he fare with the Israeli bricklayers?

Simoncarr75@hotmail.com