Despite the pain, PM still believes in war

Tony Blair has been open about the weight of responsibility he bears for decisions over life and death. During the main combat phase in Iraq, he was observed by Peter Stothard, a semi-official chronicler of how the war was directed from Downing Street. The PM spoke of being ready "to meet my maker" and answer for "those who have died or have been horribly maimed as a result of my decisions".

Tony Blair has been open about the weight of responsibility he bears for decisions over life and death. During the main combat phase in Iraq, he was observed by Peter Stothard, a semi-official chronicler of how the war was directed from Downing Street. The PM spoke of being ready "to meet my maker" and answer for "those who have died or have been horribly maimed as a result of my decisions".

Not that in the case of the hostage-taking there is necessarily much that Mr Blair can do. There is general agreement that the Government cannot yield to the demands of the hostage-takers, even if it could be sure what they were. It is accepted that, behind the scenes, officials are doing what can be done, and that the most valuable commodity in the machinery of government, prime-ministerial attention, is being deployed to the full.

Mr Blair is humanly sensitive to the torment of the Bigley family, but is confident that history will judge that he has acted rightly. That, I think, steels him against the highly personal nature of Kenneth Bigley's video appeal.

At one of his lowest points over Iraq, two days after Dr David Kelly's body was found, Mr Blair hand-wrote a letter to the parents of Marc Lawrence, who had been killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq, saying: "I know there is little I can say to mitigate your grief or anguish. I also know that the current public debate must make things worse. I simply want you to know that I did not take the decision lightly but because I believed and still believe it to have been absolutely necessary for our future security and that of the wider world."

The problem for the Prime Minister is that these life-and-death decisions flow from a prior decision to invade Iraq that many passionately opposed. Hence the letters accusing him of being willing to sacrifice the lives of British soldiers but not of his own children, or pointing out that hostages are only being taken in Iraq because of anarchy caused by the invasion.

I suspect Mr Blair himself was conscious of the special responsibility of power long before the rest of us detected anything particularly warlike in his demeanour. Even a year before the 1997 election, there was no doubt he understood it, had thought about it and took it seriously. The day he acknowledged it publicly was a small but significant moment in the transition from Bambi to Stalin in the perception of the public.

Since the Iraq invasion, those perceptions have hardened against him. I suspect he always knew that they would, but did not expect it to happen over a war to overthrow a tyrant such as Saddam Hussein.

John Rentoul is the author of 'Tony Blair: Prime Minister', published by Time Warner.