THE HUNTING OF THE BLUSH-BAIR
                                      or
                        The Jury's Bad Dream

They'd sought it with Butler's,
                         they'd sought it from Blair;
  And they clutched at damp Straw's of hope;
They'd buttoned its truth in Hutton's duff chair
  And washed it in Chilcot's soap.

But the Jury then, weary of proving in vain
   That the PM's war-making was wrong,
Fell asleep, and in dreams, saw the matter quite plain
   That their anger had dwelt on so long.

They dreamed that they stood in a televised Court,
   Where the Blush, with one mad, staring eye,
Dressed in sneakers and jeans,
                         was defending the scenes
That Bair's bombs had let loose from the sky.

The Witnesses swore, with frank error, their flaw
   That the sky was Sam-empty they'd found:
And the Blush kept explaining
                         that Bair's "shock and awe"
Had all WMD sent to ground.

Each Inquiry, with care, was so poorly expressed,
   That they found that the Blush had begun,
And had spoken three times, before everyone guessed
   What the Bair was pretending they'd done.

The Jury had each formed a different view
   (Long before the indictment was read),
And they all spoke as one, as they all of them knew
   Ev'ry half truth the Witnesses said.

'You must know -' said the Judge;
                     but the Blush exclaimed 'Fudge!
Why Nuremberg's obsolete quite!
Let me tell you, my friends,
                     the whole question depends
On my Goldsmith's devalued insight.

'In the case of war-making the Bair would appear
   To have aided, not merely abetted:
While the charge of Insurgency proves, it is clear
   Iraq's chaos to us is indebted.

'The fact of Aggression we cannot dispute;
   But its guilt, as I trust, is removed,
As far as the many dead, costs in this suit,
   By an Alibi never yet proved.

'My Cabinet's fate now depends on your votes.'
   Here Blush-Bair each sat down in his place,
While A Campbell, the Judge sent
                         to check that his notes
   Deniably sexed-down the case.

But the Judge said he never had sexed to excess;
   So the Blush undertook it instead,
And summed it so well that it came to far less
   Than the Witnesses ever had said!

When the verdict was called for, the Jury declined,
   As 'twice guilty' was puzzling to spell;
But they ventured the hope
                   that Blush-Bair wouldn't mind
   Undertaking that duty as well.

So the Pair found the verdict,
                     although, the Blush owned,
   His back scarred with the strains of the day:
When they chimed 'We're not guilty!'
                         the Jury all groaned,
   And the faint-hearted fainted away.

Then the Pair pronounced sentence,
                           the judge being much
   Too honoured to utter a word:
They both rose to their feet, and on TV the hush
   Like the fall of the Beeb might be heard.

'To be whitewashed for life'
                   was the sentence they gave,
   'And Iraq fined millions of pounds.'
The Jury broke down, but the Judge (one G Brown)
   Thought it never as bad as it sounds.

For their rash expectation had surely been checked
   As the UN informed them, with tears,
A true verdict would have not the slightest effect,
   As justice had been dead for some years.

Then the Judge left the Court, looking deeply relieved;
   But Blush-Bair, with triumph still smirking,
As the briefs who alone their defence had believed,
   Thought it best to carry on lurking.

Thus the Jury all dreamed,
                 while the foul escape seemed
   To shamefully grow every day;
Till all woke to the knell of a higher court's bell,
   That would toll the Pair's black souls away.

                    (Apologies to Lewis Carroll)