Papers vilify 'coward' Short

Papers vilify 'coward' Short

There is no disguising the anger of the Daily Mirror about Clare Short's decision not to join Robin Cook in resigning from the Cabinet - "Cometh the hour, cometh the coward".

Having last week hailed her principled stand against going to war without a second UN resolution, the Mirror now scornfully dubs Clare Short the Minister for International Destruction, describing her as a political pariah.

The Daily Telegraph broadly agrees, reporting how her decision to stay on has drawn reactions ranging from bafflement to contempt from her Labour colleagues.

The Independent now sees her as an isolated and humiliated figure at Westminster, while the Daily Express picks up on a comment made by the former Tory leader William Hague.

Lost credibility

He joked that keeping her in Cabinet was the PM's "revenge for her".

The Financial Times believes that, with her belated decision to stay, Ms Short has lost credibility and is now far more dismissible by Mr Blair at the time of his convenience.

To illustrate the strain Ms Short was under, the Times carries a picture of her tightly clenched fists as she explained why she was not resigning.

Mockingly it alludes to Saddam Hussein, saying that after nine years of obstruction, non-compliance and broken promises, Clare Short clings on to power.

'Dignified appeal'

The political sketch writers were clearly impressed by the prime minister's performance in Tuesday's Commons debate.

No less than Simon Hoggart in the Guardian describes it as electrifying. He writes that Mr Blair had managed to dredge up undiscovered reserves of energy, to find that last can of petrol in the boot.

Here was a man who knows he is right, ablaze with conviction, who by the end had kicked into Henry V mode.

According to Ben Macintyre in the Times, the Prime Minister had played not to the gallery but to the heart.

The power of his speech lay not in oratorical flourish, or wit or calculated emotional appeal - instead it was raw, simple, dignified and bleak; a promise, a plea and a warning.

'Diana's funeral voice'

Frank Johnson in the Telegraph says that while Mr Blair deployed his tremulous "Diana's funeral" voice at the start of yesterday's debate, it became firmer and more convincing as his speech gathered speed.

He felt it was remarkable not so much for what Mr Blair said, since he said nothing new, but the eloquent way in which he said it.

Quentin Letts, in the Daily Mail, detected a new Blair, with a variety of pace and emphasis, tone and volume. It was - in his words - an extraordinary speech; furious with intent, fizzing with conviction, at times imploring at others raging against what he saw as the recklessness of inaction.

First shots

The Times and the Independent both claim to have heard the first shots in the coming war, though they were hundreds of miles apart.

The Times reports that they were fired at sea, when a Kuwaiti patrol boat challenged 25 Iraqi dhows suspected of laying mines.

But the Independent believes the other side fired first, with Iraqi helicopter gunships opening up on three Kurdish villages near Kirkuk.

But local commanders dismiss the attack as a desperate attempt by the Iraqi army to raise the morale of its men.