As millions of Britons turned on their televisions yesterday for Tony Blair’s eagerly-awaited appearance at the Iraq Inquiry, Rachel Wearmouth went to his former constituency in Sedgefield, County Durham, to find out what the people who knew him best thought of his evidence.

UNLIKE in other parts of the country, most people in Sedgefield still talk about Tony Blair with affection.

Here, the former Prime Minister is referred to as “Tony” and not “Blair”.

Rising to become the County Durham borough’s freshfaced MP in 1983, he celebrated his party’s 1997 landslide win at Trimdon Labour Club, a stone’s throw from where he lived.

Over the road, at the Fox and Hounds yesterday, regulars looked up at the screen at a face once so familiar with a mixture of pride and suspicion.

Do they feel let down?

Landlord Kevin Jackson said though heavy doubts lingered over the war, most people did not blame Mr Blair.

“The customers here all love Tony Blair. He is wellliked around this area,” he said.

Referring to the thorny issue of weapons of mass destruction, he said: “I don’t think it was just Tony Blair. I think it was the whole Government that put that scenario over to us and we all took it in. We were misled and I think Tony Blair was misled.

“We need to know why people lost their lives, but with Saddam Hussein and his cronies gone the world is a better place.”

But not everyone is so forgiving.

Others watching the evidence unfold saw the typical politician, masking truth with charisma.

Pensioner John Garside was running to catch a bus in his home village of Sedgefield when he stopped to air his views.

“I think Tony Blair could get out of positions Houdini couldn’t,” he said. “I watched Working Lunch on TV every week when he was Prime Minister and he was good at the answers, but not at giving the answers to the questions.

“There is no link to 9/11 so I don’t know why he is harping on about that.

“He is evasive. Nobody can not answer questions like Tony can.”

In 2003, Mr Blair took the US president to the Dun Cow, in Sedgefield, for some fish and chips.

Yesterday, John Burton, Mr Blair’s agent throughout his tenure, was one of the customers ordering lunch there.

“I saw him a fortnight ago,”

he said. “He said he had gone through the information and would have made the same decision today.

“He led the country with the information that the socalled experts gave him and that is what a leader is about.

“It is not the critic that is important, it is the man that goes in and controls the arena and Tony Blair certainly controlled the arena.”

Phil Wilson succeeded Mr Blair as Sedgefield MP. Yesterday, he watched proceedings at the computer in his Newton Aycliffe office.

“This is the third or fourth inquiry into the war. How many inquiries do we need?”

he asked.

“It don’t think it really matters what it comes out with because some people will always want to see Tony Blair hung, drawn and quartered.”

Elsewhere we came across Janet Crofthill, shopping in a quiet Newton Aycliffe town centre.

She said the inquiry would not be the “judgment day”

everyone was expecting.

“I think Tony Blair was a little bit of a lapdog for America As millions of Britons turned on their televisions yesterday for Tony Blair’s eagerly-awaited appearance at the Iraq Inquiry, Rachel Wearmouth went to his former constituency in Sedgefield, County Durham, to find out what the people who knew him best thought of his evidence FAMILIAR FACE: A customer in the Fox and Hounds, Trimdon Village, watches Tony Blair on TV yesterday Picture: ANDY LAMB and for George Bush,” she said. Yes, he was Prime Minister of the country, but I firmly believe that he had a team behind him and he could only act on the advice that he was given by that team.

“I really don’t believe that one man can make that decision alone to go to war. But, because he was the leader he is taking the brunt of it.

“I don’t think the inquiry will have any meaningful outcome for me.”

The millions who tuned in may be left feeling the same.