His ability to mask his real feelings has been one of his strengths. That is how he was able to pose for so long as the political equivalent of JK Rowling's Mirror of Erised, in which everyone sees that which they most desire. Instead, he had to rely on the argument that the name was bound to become public anyway and he could not withhold material information from parliamentary committees.There was, therefore, a lack of authenticity in yesterday's evidence, however effortlessly he may have survived a day that had - once again - been billed as his greatest test But that has always been the case with Mr Blair. The fact that Dr Kelly apparently took his own life creates an almost irresistible assumption in the public mind that the Government must in some way be responsible.Mr Blair was therefore constrained in what he could say yesterday. It was presumably this experience that led him to authorise Alastair Campbell to attack the BBC in extravagant language at the Foreign Affairs Select Committee four weeks later.That was the error of judgement that precipitated a crisis from which Mr Blair and Mr Campbell probably could not have emerged with credit - even before David Kelly's death.It hardly mattered with what skill Mr Blair deployed the arguments in his favour yesterday. And Mr Blair is usually extremely good at putting on the thick skin.He is, as has often been observed, one of the most media-sensitive politicians, a good judge of how things will play with journalists, as well as being a fine judge of public opinion. Yet one of his strengths has been his ability to suppress his real views in order to smooth his path through the prickly egos of the media-political complex.On that morning in Basra, however, it seems Mr Blair began to lose the sense of proportion and self-restraint that had served him so well in the past.

Even so, Mr Blair's assertion that the BBC report was an attack on him as Prime Minister, on the intelligence services, "and on the country as a whole" sounded like his predecessor at her most shrill attacking the enemy within. "Parts of the BBC," he said, did not cover the war in "as objective a way as it ought".The nerve that Andrew Gilligan's report touched that morning was, therefore, more raw than usual. That morning, the BBC had aired the "extraordinary allegation" that his office had included things in the Iraq weapons dossier against the wishes of the intelligence services.So there he was, visiting "liberated" Iraq after a successful war which had deposed a ghastly dictator with fewer casualties than had been feared, and all he got from the journalists with him was carping questions following up the BBC's "absurd" claims.There were more echoes of Margaret Thatcher in his evidence yesterday. What he could not take, he told the Hutton inquiry yesterday, was an allegation that, had it been true, "would have merited my resignation". "When people look back on this time and look back on this conflict, I honestly believe they will see this as one of the defining moments of our century." There was a touch of Thatcher, both in his nationalism - "You have made this whole country, our country, hold its head up high" - and in his personal responsibility for the Iraq war - "I know there were a lot of disagreements in the country about the wisdom of my decision to order the action." Honest disagreements he could cope with, in his view of himself as a heroic national leader overcoming the doubters back home, armed only by his shining conviction in the rightness of his cause.

On the morning of 29 May this year, Tony Blair addressed 400 British troops from the verandah of a former presidential palace It was a short speech, but long on rhetoric. It all went wrong in Basra. Only yesterday a target-based incentive scheme for teachers was scrapped because it had not raised standards.If the reduction in asylum applications allows the Government to get its administrative house in order, it might also offer some respite from the campaign against compassion being waged by the reactionary press.But it needs to be regarded as providing a breathing space so that a more efficient system might recover some public confidence, and not as a permanent closing of the door to people in desperate need.. There is evidence in the less highly charged figures for work permits and the granting of rights to settle here that economic migration is being accommodated through alternative, legal channels.The dangers of targets plucked from thin air for emotive, headline numbers ought to be apparent by now. It has now been made so difficult for genuine refugees to get to Britain that the numbers arriving are going to be even more dominated by those with money and contacts with criminal gangs.That is hardly the best way for this country to discharge its responsibility to offer a safe haven for those fleeing their homes in fear of their lives.However, yesterday's figures also suggest some success in separating asylum-seekers from those who want to come to Britain to better themselves - who should also be welcomed with open arms. The fall in the number of people applying for asylum in Britain can only be welcomed if it is the prelude to a more compassionate policy towards those fleeing persecution. One of the worst injustices in the present system is the length of time it takes to process claims for refugee status. If the smaller number of applicants allows the Government to get a grip of the administration of claims, so that cases can be decided more quickly, then yesterday's figures are good news.The sharp cut in asylum-seeker numbers should not, however, be at the expense of those who need protection from persecution but who cannot make their way to these shores.The way in which the Prime Minister's target of halving the number of applications since last October has been met should cause some concern.

What Mr Blair seems not to appreciate is that the reason it lingers is not that it has been insufficiently denied, but because in essence, if not in all the minutiae, the public believes it to be true.. This same statement, however, can be seen as the last, best effort of a rattled Government to dispel a charge that still lingers: the charge that it "sexed up" the threat from Iraq to bolster its case for war. And there was the unseemly panic that gripped Downing Street as Mr Blair's Rolls-Royce of a communications machine proved powerless, almost for the first time, to discredit the charge broadcast by the BBC.Yesterday, Mr Blair's most arresting statement was that the BBC report, if true, would have required him to resign This is why, he said, it was so vital that it was refuted. There was the clubbiness of a prime ministerial operation where "Kevin and David", but apparently no accountable ministers, dealt with the Iraq weapons dossier, the question of Dr Kelly, and the BBC. Most signally, Mr Blair could not, or would not, clarify the role of his own press office in dropping clues about Dr Kelly.Unintentionally, perhaps, Mr Blair's evidence exposed other weaknesses in the way his government functioned.