Like Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army, former Royal Marines officer Paddy Ashdown cannot quite clear the scent of battle from his nostrils. He now says Charles Kennedy, his successor as leader of the Liberal Democrats, was wrong to oppose the Iraq war.

“I say this because Charles has gone but, yes, I would have supported the war in Iraq if I’d been leader of the party,” he reveals. “I’m very clear that it was necessary to do, though I couldn’t have predicted they would make such a mess of the peace.”

Ashdown, who served as high representative of the international community in Bosnia until this year, tells the Journal of Liberal History: “In the end, it was a confrontation between an extremely evil man, Saddam Hussein, and the United States, upon whom we rely, whether we like it or not, to help us to establish a broadly liberal world — and to allow the USA to be defeated would have been devastating for western power.”

The Lib Dems were the only main party to oppose the war, and reaped the benefits — albeit modest — at last year’s election. They won 62 seats, their highest number of MPs since the 1920s. And then they elected Private Fraser as leader . . .

Euan Blair tells Tories daddy isn’t quitting

Another member of the Blair family has confirmed that the prime minister will have to be prised out of No 10 with a crowbar. Euan Blair, 22, has told senior Tories that his father is in no hurry to hand over to Gordon Brown. It follows remarks by Cherie Blair last year that any departure was a long way in the future.

Now working as an intern at the US Congress, Blair Jr met George Osborne and William Hague by chance at the British embassy in Washington, where the Tories were guests of our ambassador and Euan was on his way to a dinner. A Tory aide said: “We asked Euan in a light-hearted way about his dad’s plans and he made it clear that the prime minister does not want to go.”

• Everything is fine and dandy in the NHS, according to Tony Blair. Well, perhaps he should mention this to defence secretary John Reid, a former health secretary, who joined a protest outside a hospital in his Airdrie constituency yesterday. Demonstrators fear they might lose its accident and emergency service.

  The naked ape caught Russians' eye as spy suspect

  Not even John le Carré could have made this one up. Desmond Morris, author of The Naked Ape, has revealed how he was suspected of spying during a 1966 visit to Russia with a giant panda.

  Morris took the London Zoo panda to Moscow to mate it with a Russian one. But the KGB suspected Morris, now 78, was working for his friend Maxwell Knight. To Morris, Knight was a fellow naturalist. To the Soviets, he was the spymaster who inspired Ian Fleming’s “M”.

  The Russians tested Morris by approaching him at Moscow’s GUM department store. “Psst!” said a stranger. “Do you want secret plans for a factory?” “Er, no,” replied Morris rather limply. “Not today, thank you.”

• Bad news for Boris Johnson: he might have to reconsider his retirement plan. Writing last week about flexibility in the job market, he looked forward to “happily writing headlines for Poultry Breeders Weekly”. Well, the first thing he will learn there is not to count his chickens before they hatch. You don’t just breeze into cushy jobs in the competitive world of poultry publishing.

  At Practical Poultry magazine, they were very doubtful they’d be able to fit him in. “We’re a very small team: me, my wife and a loyal band of contributors,” says editor Chris Graham. So Boris might have to lower his ambitions rather. Perhaps he could stick with politics?