In a parochial game of conkers played out at Westminster, Labour peer Lord Foulkes has taken a whack at the knuckles of Scotland’s First Minister. He has lodged a formal complaint against Alex Salmond with John Lyon, the Standards Commissioner. His charge relates to Mr Salmond’s claim on expenses for his share (£790) of the fees for legal advice in the joint attempt by the SNP and Plaid Cymru to bring Tony Blair to account for taking Britain illegally to war with Iraq.

The case Lord Foulkes has put forward, which the Commissioner has accepted for investigation, is that Mr Salmond has used his expenses for the pursuit of party political activities - which is against the rules.

In taking this action, Lord Foulkes has demonstrated powerfully that the Labour Party is not only stuck in parish pump political game playing but cannot tell right from wrong.

The central issue in the attempt to impeach Tony Blair was always a moral one. Had it succeeded, any party political advantage accruing to it would have been incidental. What still matters is rightness and just deserts.

Blair’s actions in, at the very least, underinforming Parliament and taking Britain to war with Iraq on a false premise of which it is hard to accept he was unaware, remain uninvestigated - as does the inexplicable death of Dr David Kelly.

Two factors may change this situation:

• Gordon Brown’s political weakness may make it finally impossible to protect Blair from full investigation in the failed attempt to hold the Iraq Inquiry in private and with a very limited brief. It is understood that Blair had friends intercede with Brown on his behalf, in his anxiety that the inquiry, if full and open, might result in his losing the post he covets. For several years he has been scheming to become the first permanent President of the European Union.
• The legal challenge by a consortium of serious medical opinion to the discredited Hutton report’s conclusions is calling for a Coroner’s Inquest into Dr Kelly’s death to be held, as it should already legally have been. Hutton conveniently concluded that Dr Kelly committed suicide by cutting the small and inaccessible Ulnar artery in his wrist with a blunt gardening knife. The doctors concerned contend that this is a medical impossibility on several grounds.

Foulkes’ little move was so blinkered in its keenness to score against his political superior that he failed to take account of President Obama’s admission this week that Britain is actually at much greater risk than the USA of terrorist action in retribution for its part in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Blair’s action in taking the country into these wars against the evidence, against the clear weight of public opinion and probably against legal opinion was unarguably wrong.  Now we know that his actions have made us an enemy deemed by terrorists to be even more reprehensible than the principal, America, Blair so self-interestedly supported. And maybe we are.

If Alex Salmond had claimed for the entire legal bill of £14,000 instead of his £790 share of it, it would still have been a proper use of public money in its drive to restore integrity to public life.