In a nice piece of investigative reporting, the Manchester Guardian has disclosed that Tony Blair knew about torture of terrorism suspects as far back as January 2002.

Blair's spokesman did not deny the Guardian report that, as prime minister, Blair was aware that torture was being used against terrorism suspects held by a foreign power, presumably the United States.

The former PM's spokesman however insisted that Blair had never condoned torture.

British interrogators were instructed to take a "do nothing" stance if they became aware of torture, except that if a captive told of having been tortured, there was to be no further contact with him. The British attitude strongly suggests that its officials considered the CIA's "enhanced interrogations" to be nothing other than torture.