Do our wonderful government ever take a break from working flat out to keep us in a state of blissful ignorance. Even on Christmas day they are squirreling away burying bad news. Well let's face it, if 9/11 was seen by Blair's government as a good day to bury bad news 12/25 is a thousand times better.
And so over the weekend when the great British public are catatonic after overdosing on everything the news broke that the British Army had attacked the headquarters of the Iraqi police serious crimes squad in Basra.
Now the Iraqis may have a quirky understanding of the role of a serious crimes squad but what this event means is that we, the coalition are now not just at war with terror, truth, insurgency and various nationalist militias, but with the security forces of the Iraqi government (which you may remember was imposed on Iraq by the American / British coalition).
Yes, our boys are attacking those very security forces that a few months ago we were told would be ready to take over responsibility for "homeland security" in Iraq sometime in 2007. The reason for the attack? The serious crimes squad was a bunch of corrupt and depraved torturers, extortionists, rapists, thugs, racketeeers and thieves. Just like Saddam's government then.
But the real reason the news had to be buried under the fallout from twenty million Christmas dinners. Simple, it shouts more clearly than anything has so far that we, the western alliance, have lost the war.