Mr Blair, in a very carefully phrased response, concedes that 'not everything' done by Britain in the North was 'above board'.

Here's some positive news for St Patrick's Day. Irish people living in Britain are not going to lose the right to vote in general elections. Gordon Brown is going to reject the controversial suggestion from his citizenship consultant that the Irish, for the first time since partition, should be banned from the Westminster electoral rolls.

The proposal was put forward by Peter Goldsmith, the wealthy Labour peer, as part of a wide-ranging review of how to enhance the concept of British citizenship.

The most recent census in 2001 showed there were 537,000 Irish-born people in Britain, and the media coverage of the Goldsmith report suggested that they would all be deprived of their vote. In fact, Lord Goldsmith thinks that those already entitled to vote should retain that right. The ban would apply only to those arriving in Britain from Ireland in the future.

His suggestion caused widespread surprise and a degree of consternation in Downing Street circles, especially since British people in Ireland have been able to vote in Dail Eireann elections since 1985.

The decision to allow the Irish in Britain to vote for MPs was part of a concerted effort by successive UK governments to try to keep all possible lines of communication open in the hope of blurring the political frontier between the UK and Ireland.

The most striking example of this came in 1948 after John A Costello's coalition government took the decision to leave the commonwealth. The then Labour government at Westminster promptly passed a law that included this remarkable statement: "It is hereby declared that notwithstanding that the Republic of Ireland is not part of his majesty's dominions, the Republic of Ireland is not a foreign country for the purposes of any law in force in any part of the United Kingdom..."

Five years ago this week, Lord Goldsmith was also at the centre of controversy. As attorney general, he was responsible for giving the British cabinet the crucial reassurance that the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003 was lawful.

The Conservatives are using the fifth anniversary of the war to press once again for a full inquiry into the "origins and conduct" of what turned out to be one of the most disastrous foreign policy mistakes of the past 60 years.

The shadow foreign minister, William Hague, a former Conservative leader and by far the most impressive politician in David Cameron's opposition cabinet, said yesterday that "lessons have got to be learned and visibly learned and we have got to start on that process now".

Nobody knows more about what really happened behind the scenes before, during and after the invasion than Jonathan Powell, who was Tony Blair's chief of staff throughout his 10 years in Downing Street.

Mr Powell has now written a book called 'Great Hatred, Little Room' (to be published on Thursday) about the Good Friday agreement and he has also made a documentary about it to be shown on the BBC next week. In it, incidentally, Mr Blair, in a very carefully phrased response, concedes that "not everything" done by Britain in the North was "above board".

One of the "below board" activities which paid off was the clandestine communication between the UK government and the paramilitaries. Mr Powell has now infuriated Gordon Brown by suggesting that efforts should be made to open a similar secret dialogue with al-Qa'ida. "Inconceivable" was the retort from a Downing Street spokesman. But Mr Powell pointed out yesterday that John Major had told the Commons that it would "turn his stomach' to hold talks with Gerry Adams at the very time that just such dialogue was under way.

Because Mr Powell was so close to Mr Blair for so long, there is inevitably speculation that Mr Blair himself, in addition to his public role as Middle East envoy, is also secretly trying to find a way of getting a direct line of communication with al-Qa'ida.

Most MPs at Westminster, however, share the scepticism of William Hague about the chances of success for such a move. Mr Hague said yesterday that such dialogue can only work when terrorists stop believing they can win by violence and when there is the possibility of a political settlement. Neither of those conditions applies in the case of al-Qa'ida.

The continuing large-scale commitment to both Iraq and Afghanistan is adding to the intense financial pressures on the treasury. The two battlefronts are costing far more than was originally expected. It is particularly upsetting for Gordon Brown to see the price of gold soaring above $1,000 an ounce.

In the years 1999-2002, during his time as chancellor, he sold off more than half the UK's gold reserves when the price was barely a quarter of that. The ingots he sold would now be worth about €6bn more than he got at the time -- enough to pay the running costs of the armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan for almost two years.

The latest opinion polls show the biggest Conservative lead over Labour for 25 years but, against the background of fear and hysteria in the world financial markets, Mr Brown and his chancellor, Alistair Darling, have so far managed to retain respectable ratings for their economic competence.

That may be about to change, however. The impact on the 'real' economy of the collapse of in the bond markets has yet to be widely felt, but estate agents in Britain are at their most pessimistic since 1992 and, as in Ireland, house prices are under pressure as the spring sales season begins.

The hope in Downing Street is that Ben Bernanke, the head of the US Federal Reserve, who is a recognised expert on the history of the Great Crash of 1929, can turn out new dollars at sufficient speed to replace those that are simply disappearing as the world's bankers stop believing in the real value of anything, particularly anything that includes the word mortgage.

- Nicholas Leonard