I’ve just got back from a cold but worth-it few hours outside the Iraq Inquiry. Blair’s still giving evidence, it feels a bit early to draw conclusions about the quality of the questioning. It seems pretty certain to me though that the people asking the questions knew we wanted them to get tough.

14,200 of us had signed the petition by the time we handed it over as an official submission to the inquiry for a final time today. They must have been pretty familiar with us by then – we’ve been sending them email updates of the questions and petition numbers for the past few days, and yesterday evening we paid Sir Roderic Lyne a personal visit to present him with a copy and a “get tough” cake to share with his fellow questioners.

Today we also had the help of some excellent cheerleaders, who gathered a bit of a crowd with chants such as:

“Give us a W, Give us an M, Give us a D….No seriously, show us some…”
There are some pictures on our facebook group. They were real stars, and really into the campaign.

We also had some Billboard Advertisments around London with our top questions on – there’s an article about them with some pics here.

Chilcot seems to have hinted that Blair may be called back to give more evidence later on in the inquiry – perhaps an encouraging sign that the Inquiry is feeling the need to get tougher, and definitely a reason for us to keep up the pressure.

When did you first promise George Bush you’d back an invasion? When did you really realise Saddam Hussein probably didn’t have WMD? Did you cover up advice that the war might be illegal? These are just a few of the questions that 13,525 of us want Tony Blair to face tomorrow at the Iraq Inquiry.

Over the last few days thousands of us from across the UK have signed the petition calling on the Iraq Inquiry to get tough on Blair.

Tonight we’re delivering the petition, along with the “get tough” cake on the right to the Panel and we’ll make sure they receive it tomorrow too. We’ve got lots more planned for tomorrow to make sure the panel and Blair know we want the truth. If you can join us we’d love to see you, we’re meeting outside the Middlesex Guildhall by Parliament Square tomorrow morning from eight, complete with cheerleaders shouting our tough questions to Tony Blair.

You can stay up to date with what we’re up to by following us on Twitter and we’ll update the blog too.

There’s still time to sign the petition, once you’ve signed it don’t forget to ask your friends and family too.

Tony Blair gives evidence to the Iraq Inquiry this Friday. Since we last blogged about what we want Blair asked at the Inquiry, thousands more of us have submitted our questions and the petition to Sir John Chilcot now has over 10,000 signatures. Earlier today, we went into central London to ask people which questions they wanted him to answer: you can see the responses we got on our video clip here.

With the pre-war period back in the news again, the questions are getting more focused. We want to know whether the need to keep war preparations a secret meant not enough planning was done in the run-up to the invasion. We also want to find out when Blair decided to go to war: had he already made commitments to the US before he went before Parliament? There’s also the question of what pressure was put on Lord Goldsmith, something the Attorney General’s appearance before the Inquiry on Thursday should help to answer.

But as we know, its not just about what questions we ask Blair. It’s also about how they’re asked. That’s why 10,000 of us have signed a petition asking the panel to get tough on the former PM. It’s also why 38 Degrees will be outside the Inquiry on Friday morning to make sure they do.

Here are our most popular questions for Blair:
Why weren’t the UN weapons inspectors allowed to finish their work?
When did you first promise George Bush you would back an invasion?
Why wasn’t more done to prepare for rebuilding Iraq after the invasion?
On what specific intelligence was the WMD claim based?
Lord Goldsmith changed his mind about the legality of going to war. What was your role in this?
What advice did you get from the Foreign Office about the effect invading Iraq might have on the region?
If regime change was the real reason for going to war, why weren’t you more open with the British public and parliament?
Why weren’t more of the Cabinet involved in the decision to go to war?
Why did you ignore the anti-war protests by the British people?

Over the past week 38 Degrees members have been thinking of tough questions to ask Tony Blair at the Iraq Inquiry. On Wednesday Hannah and I went to a high profile event at the Foreign Press Association, which was  inspired by our campaign.

Discussing how the Inquiry should be carried out were Jon Snow, the veteran Channel 4 journalist, and Professor Philippe Sands, a QC who has written a book on the legality of the Iraq war.

Jon Snow then asked Professor Sands how he would handle the interrogation of Tony Blair and other ministers if he was a member of the panel. Professor Sands responded at length, but his main ideas were:

Firstly, he would insist on the use of documentary evidence, some of which is currently unavailable to the public, to help expose the flaws in witnesses’ statements.

Secondly, he would find out Blair’s motivation in going to war by questioning him closely about the inconsistencies in his thinking in the year before the decision was taken.

Thirdly, he would ask about the content of the available intelligence in the run up to the war, why the government had waited so long to ask for legal advice, and about Lord Goldsmith’s role.

Finally, he would ask why “no thought [was] given on a systematic basis” to the question of post-war planning and the possible effect of the war on the Middle East. Had Blair even read the advice on regional instabilities given to him by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office?

The discussion finished with a bit of psychological speculation about why Tony Blair did go to war. Professor Sands was happy to give his opinion on the matter: Tony “needed to be loved by the biggest boy in the playground”: George Bush.

You can listen to recording of the whole conversation at the Foreign Press Association website.

Back in June, 38 Degrees members took action to make sure that the Iraq Inquiry was held in public.  Thousands of us signed a petition calling for Gordon Brown to drop his commitment to a private inquiry, and the Prime Minister was forced to listen to us.

This month, Tony Blair is giving evidence to the Inquiry.  With the man responsible for taking us to war up for questioning, this is the moment to discover the truth about why we went into Iraq.  But the Inquiry and its leader, Sir John Chilcot, have already been accused of being too lenient on witnesses and leaving important questions unasked. There are also worries that Blair, desperate to save his reputation, will use security concerns as an excuse for not answering tough questions. It’s time for us to put the pressure back on the government. We need to make sure that when Blair gives evidence, he is asked the right questions, in public, and properly held to account.

We asked you to choose the questions that Tony Blair is asked when he gives evidence, and so far we’ve had a massive response.  Many of us just want to express our anger at Blair: for ignoring the views of the people he represented and taking us to war in spite of enormous popular opposition, and for apparently deceiving us about why he was doing so.  Others want Blair to answer for the current mess in Iraq: why wasn’t more done to prepare for the reconstruction of Iraq, post-invasion?  We also want to know about the financial angle: who has profited from the war in Iraq, and to what extent? However, the main focus of the questions is, unsurprisingly, on two issues: did Blair actually believe that going to war was a legitimate and necessary action, or was it a means to other ends, and were the steps that he took to persuade others to support him in this action themselves legitimate?

Please keep the questions coming by signing up on our website, here: http://38degrees.org.uk/blair-iraq-questions/

When Gordon Brown announced that there was going to be an inquiry into the Iraq war, a private inquiry, an inquiry behind closed doors, an inquiry where we were only going to hear part of the truth, we knew we had to do something. I not only felt that this was an injustice to all those who marched against the Iraq war, but also an injustice to those who supported it at the time but then felt tricked by exaggerated claims about “Weapons of Mass Destruction”, and all those service personnel who went to war and died on the basis of made up claims. Thousands and thousands of Iraqis have died, as well as 179 British service men and women.

So we responded and launched a petition for the inquiry to be held in public. Thousands of us signed in just a few days, an amazing response which upped the pressure on Brown and showed how many of us believe passionately that we deserve a proper inquiry into the war.

Quickly things started to go our way.  The signatures mounted up. We started to hear from MPs saying they had signed the petition and supported the campaign.  Independent experts started to speak out saying there was no good reason for the secrecy. Under all this pressure, Gordon Brown began to waver, claiming that it was up to the inquiry chairman to decide which parts of the inquiry were to be held in public. We had him on the back foot and we were not going to give up.

We flooded parliament with our petition, ensuring every MP received a copy. More MP’s got in touch with us to show their support. We contacted hundreds of local groups, who showed their support and pushed the petition out to all who they could..Thank you!

In the week since the petition was launched, we’ve made massive progress. Sir John Chilcot the appointed chair of the inquiry said “I believe it will be essential to hold as much of the proceedings of the inquiry as possible in public’ and made it clear that key figures like Gordon Brown and Tony Blair can expect to appear in public.

For now, it looks like we’ve achieved a great result, but we will keep watching to see how the inquiry operates in practice. We will step up the pressure again if needs be.

From working on this campaign I have to say that I feel inspired. It’s been amazing to see the positive response and see that people want to contribute to making a change in the way that UK politics is working. It’s great to see people taking action together, working together and being part of a people powered movement.