In an earlier post I said that Brown had kept the Iraq inquiry hearings secret because Blair and Miliband did not want to be obliged to give evidence in public. Bingo! The Observer has confirmed the first part of my judgement. But there is more to it than this. Team Blair, which includes Mandelson, Miliband, Campbell, Angi Hunter, are doing everything they can to fix the presidency of Europe. (According to Peter Oborne in yesterday's Mail they have succeeded in recruiting Blair-lover David Cameron to the cause). Blair is slippery enough to know that he could survive a public interrogation on his Iraq mandacity. But even the prospect of such a hearing would damage his standing as a candidate for becoming our president. This had to be prevented at all costs.

The cost was Brown looking ridiculous, Having just declared for transparency and against rule by a "gentleman's club" he was obliged to announce that the Iraq inquiry would be a gentleman's agreement, meeting in private without witnesses having to give evidence on oath. 

Why on earth did Brown protect Blair like this? Well, ask yourself why Mandelson so insisted. Mandelson, who would like to be our president's chef de cabinet, is determined to keep Brown in office to lock in British support for Blair's elevation. In his conversation with Miliband at the hight of the coup Mandelson threatened him with the consequences of disloyalty to this new form of the project: walk out of the Cabinet with Purnell and you will find yourself in the dock under oath telling the world what you knew about the Iraq decision and no prospect whatever thereafter of either winning the Labour leadership or having a fallback job in the Blair presidential entourage.

Yes, folks, the fix is in.