Ideas are buzzing in my head this evening. I just watched the BBC Ten O'clock News, and on came Robin Cook (former Foreign Secretary and most substantial opponent of the war in Iraq in the Commons). Hearing him talk about the need for an exit strategy for British troops just brought to mind Paul Reynolds and a hyped-up report that ran recently saying that Powell and co have stated that if the new Iraqi government wanted us to leave we would (imagine the world reaction if we said we'd be there whether they wanted us or not).

Meanwhile there was talk of Tony Blair's future being in jeopardy.

In a word it's 'synchronicity'. It's the way the anti-war left, the BBC and doves from boths sides of the Atlantic synchronise their reporting and their statements to build the political pressure to get what they want. I think it's the speciality of the left, though not their preserve. It surely cannot be coincidence that this mantra of 'exit strategy' has gained traction just now. It's sickening when you think who the real beneficiaries of this flexing media-muscle are

There are some people on the right though who have an uncanny knack of picking the mood and dissecting it. Just as I hear Tony Blair's death rattle being practiced, Mark Steyn encapsulates this trend:

'In the last few days, the Mirror, a raucous Fleet Street tabloid, has published pictures of British troops urinating on Iraqi prisoners, and the Boston Globe, a somnolent New England broadsheet, has published pictures of American troops sexually abusing Iraqi women. In both cases, the pictures turned out to be fake. From a cursory glance at the details in the London snaps and the provenance of the Boston ones, it should have been obvious to editors at both papers that they were almost certainly false.

Yet they published them. Because they wanted them to be true. Because it would bring them a little closer to the head they really want to roll -- George W. Bush's.'

Yes, and if Tony Blair insists on standing with GWB- which the BBC only tonight described as infuriating to Blair's own party- he will find his neck expendable too. Synchronicity.

One final thought. I've heard it said that the only people to resign so far in incidents related to the WoT and Iraq are journalists like Gilligan, Dyke and Morgan, who have defended lies to get at Tony Blair over the war. Well, if they succeed in the ultimate aim they will be able to reap the dubious spoils that will attend an anti-WoT dispensation. And it's not as if they haven't already got lucrative substitutes for the positions they lost. That's the way today's media works: win, win.