He said, ``Don't let us forget that what was happening was that the UN and the UK were both trying to help the democratic regime restore its position from an illegal military coup. ... To read the media in the last few days, you would think it was the other way around.''

Blair was also all praise for Britain's British High Commissioner in Sierra Leone Peter Penfold. Peter Penfold is one British official who is acknowledged to have met executives of Sandline International, the company which supplied the arms and mercenaries for the counter-coup. Blair said that Peter Penfold had done ``a superb job last year in dealing with the consequences of the military coup and working closely with the regimeof President Kabbah.''

Tony Blair is only the latest and the most authoritative voice to have said what most politicians and press people believe: that the Sierra Leone affair was the ``right thing'' done the ``wrong way''. Few have any serious concern with the fact that arms were supplied to the West African Ecomog force led by Nigeria, which is itself under a UN arms embargo and which is also ruled by a military dictator who has kept the democratically-elected president in prison. An exception to the standard British reaction has been the Liberal Democrat's foreign affairs spokesperson, Menzies Campbell. He said what Tony Blair implied was that the end justified the means: ``That principle is a very dangerous one, particularly in foreign affairs.'' The focus of attention in Britain is first on whether ministers, including Foreign Secretary Robin Cook knew about Britain's role in the counter-coup; and if ministers did not, as they have claimed, know about Britain's involvement, then why they didn't sayno.

Much debate has concentrated on whether Foreign Secretary Robin Cook was negligent in his attention to the briefs that were placed in his ministerial box. The second focus is on the UN arms embargo. In this regard the balance of position rests on the interpretation of the UN embargo: i.e. whether the arms embargo applied to both the military government in Freetown and the overthrown government of President Kabbah which was until its restoration in Guinea.

Over the weekend Robin Cook, announced that he would resign if it was found that he had known and acted inappropriately. Until then Cook had been happy to let all the blame for this very confused story rest with diplomats and Foreign Office civil servants, said that he had cleared his diary to deal with the case. His critics however were quick to point out that as a fierce shadow foreign secretary, who made his reputation in parliament with his sharp attacks on the Conservative government during the arms to Iraq scandal, Robin Cook had said that ``itwould be outrageous if civil servants resign while ministers absolve themselves of responsibility.''

Cook has already ordered an inquiry to follow the investigation currently being conducted by the Customs and Excise department.

Despite the Prime Minister's intervention, Robin Cook can expect to find a hostile opposition, which has finally found a chink in the government's armour. Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Howard has demanded a full public inquiry into the affair.