It included three complaints about the British, one of which was bewilderingly trivial, but the other two were serious allegations about the abuse of prisoners.But the lawyer had heard these complaints already and knew they were being investigated, and apparently did not even show the Red Cross report to Sir Jeremy. Last February a lawyer working as an adviser to Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who was the British envoy in Iraq, was passed a report from the International Red Cross summarising the concerns the charity had raised over the previous months about the treatment of civilians by coalition troops. Of course, they don’t read them all: they have staff who sift through them deciding which ones are significant enough to be passed to the minister.It appears that no one thought that the report from the Red Cross was important enough even to be forwarded to the Ministry of Defence a few hundred yards along Whitehall. A copy was forwarded to the appropriate section of the Foreign Office, but there it disappeared into the river of messages that pours in from diplomats around the world.Jack Straw personally receives some 400 of these electronic messages – still quaintly known as telegrams – every working day; his ministers about 80 each. But he then drew an ill-chosen comparison between himself and Newcastle United’s manager, Bobby Robson, whose brilliant career might be drawing to an abrupt end.Meanwhile, those spreading branches of the Iraq crisis entangle the Government in unexpected ways.

You have to say it’s not a vote for Blair; it’s a vote for Ken Livingstone.”A West Midlands MP with a consistent record for backing Blair admitted that the substantial Muslim vote in his constituency may be lost this time, though he hopes to hold on to some of it. “We hear people saying that they’ll vote for Labour when they’ve got rid of Tony Blair – not a lot, but a few,” he said.Mr Blair himself was as upbeat on Friday as he usually is out on the stomp. Interviewed by the Evening Chronicle, the local newspaper in Newcastle, he brushed aside talk of his future as the “usual froth and bubble”. But there is a good deal of hostility to Blair and a strong feeling against involvement in Iraq.

When people bring up national issues, those issues are Iraq and asylum.”A party worker who has been out canvassing in a middle-class part of London, where immigration is not an issue, said: “We’re coming up continually against people who say they’re not voting for Tony Blair. One experienced Newcastle councillor said: “There is a degree of contentment that there are more jobs around, crime is down, property values are going up. Some of those Gordon Brown-type policies like the working families tax credit really have transformed people’s lives. Labour has held Newcastle city council since 1964, but faces a real risk of losing it to the Liberal Democrats, along with other big cities such as Birmingham and Leeds.Defeat, if it comes, will be despite Labour’s economic record rather than because of it. On Monday 14 June, Labour MPs will reassemble, shell-shocked by days of bad news.Mr Blair last week paid a campaigning visit to the North-east of England, which has the distinction of having been the one English region to stay solidly loyal in the late-1970s, as Labour’s support collapsed everywhere else. But overall, Labour is bracing itself for spectacular setbacks – particularly where there are high concentrations of Muslim voters.Ahmed Versi, editor of Muslim News, forecasts more d?cles like last year’s by-election, in which the supposedly solid Labour seat of Brent East was snatched away by the Liberal Democrats.”A lot of Muslims will either not vote, or they will change from voting Labour Very few will vote for the Conservatives. I think most of them will go to the Liberal Democrats,” he said.To add to the pain, the news will be spread out over a whole weekend, with the first council results coming in late on the Thursday night, and the results of elections to the European parliament delayed until Sunday.