So, Gordon Brown has started to backtrack on the assertions he made at the Chilcot inquiry. No surprise there then.He has today been forced to admit that he had misled the official inquiry into the Iraq War when insisting the defence budget had risen in real terms every year under Labour.
Since his appearance in front of Chilcot, his evidence at the inquiry had been repeated challenged by military chiefs and top MoD civil servants, not to mention defence pundits in the media (except the Daily Mirror, of course); they all seemed to have a different recollection of events from Gordon.
At PM Questions today, when confronted with Commons figures which proved that the defence budget had been cut 4 times during his chancellorship, he was forced to admit he had been economical with the truth.
Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox said of Gordon's disclosure: 'This is a humiliating climbdown for Gordon Brown as his attempt to rewrite history has failed and his fantasy figures have been exposed. He has made repeated and fundamentally false claims, misleading Parliament, the public and, worst of all, the armed forces and their families."
I expect that this will be only the first of many confessions to be squeezed from Mr Brown. He may well be summonsed to appear before Chilcot again and this time he may not get away with it so easily.
Let's hope he comes up before the bench before the elections.
The Mail: Brown admits defence budget did NOT rise every year - as he claimed to Iraq inquiry
Sky News: PM Writes To Iraq Inquiry About Defence Cash
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