Philip Webster, Political Editor for The Times, says that it was not the contents of the Attorney-General's legal advice, but the timing of its publication that has thrown the Labour election campaign into disarray.

"It was a very strange Labour press conference this morning. The launch of the party's business manifesto was almost completely overshadowed by the discussion on Iraq and there were some fresh developments.

"But if you look back over his eight years as Prime Minister, Tony Blair is a leader who always seems to put on his best performance when under the most pressure.

"Journalists coming out of the conference were struck by what a robust performance it had been. He didn't run away from the questions, instead he kept them coming and answered them at length.

"What was very interesting was Gordon Brown's response. Never before has he come out as strongly behind Mr Blair over the war as he did this morning. He said that he would have done exactly the same thing in the same circumstances, which is a huge thing to say given that people have always separated the two over the issue.

"He also said that Cabinet had had massive discussions on the subject of Iraq and the legality of the invasion, although he did concede that he hadn't seen this piece of advice, which he described as a paper sent to the Prime Minister.

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