They showed an excerpt from the TV broadcast of the execution this morning on the BBC. Saddam was calm and composed in a dark suit and his executioners wore skimasks. Could they not in the whole of Iraq have found half a dozen men with the balls to show their faces while they executed another human being? As far as it being an official execution sanctioned by the state, the executioners wore bomber jackets and cheap trousers instead of uniforms. The overall impression was that of a schoolmaster being executed by cowardly minicab drivers.

A sad, tawdry, sordid spectacle. The whole thing gave Saddam an air of dignity that he never possessed or deserved in life.