INCREDIBLE. Three weeks after I penned my last column, with my summer holiday intervening, the biggest running story is still whether Tony Blair misled us into war with Iraq.

Why doesn't the Government resolve this issue in one of the following ways?:

1. State frankly that it said whatever it felt it had to say to get most people on side for the war. "You wouldn't expect us to tell the truth if it didn't fit our plan, would you? After all, we are the Government.''

2. Issue the intelligence reports that landed on the PM's desk and the statements he made. Most of us are capable of deciding whether the two match up. Recognising spin is the first requirement of a mature democracy.

3. If the intelligence reports are too sensitive for public view (probably a lie but we'll let it pass) hand them in confidence to a trio of senior judges who will make the comparison with Mr Blair's statements on our behalf. Granted, this requires greater trust in judges than most now deserve, but we would probably accept their conclusion.

What can be holding the Government back? The suspicion must be that the full light of day on this murky affair will not be in its favour.

Near our Cornish holiday destination, a village near Fowey, people were protesting about plans for a wind farm. Though the Government's new wind-power programme is based largely on offshore farms, more inland locations seem certain to be targeted if the projected output is to be achieved.

In the North-East we should be thankful that so much countryside consists of national parks which are virtually no-go areas for the operators because of their tight planning regimes. But almost anywhere else that catches the breeze is now vulnerable to the giant wind turbines, which will do little to enhance the landscape.

Richard Wakeford, chief executive of the Countryside Agency, believes a public backlash against wind farms could develop. Trouble is that protest groups like the one near Fowey, whose nothern counterparts already include one near Knaresborough, fight their own corner. They are easily picked off. The same applies to campaigns against phone masts and pylons.

Making common cause would reveal the full extent of community resistance. But it would probably leave no mark on New Labour which, besides being anti-democratic, places no value on an unspoiled countryside.

OUR Cornish holiday took my wife and me into a few country churches. Neither of us is a great lover of stained glass. We believe country churches look best with clear glass, revealing the interior and allowing worshippers to see trees and sky - among the greatest of God's creations.

A newly-installed window at St Juliot's, near Boscastle, pleases the lovers of plain and fancy. Etched with scenes recording the church's connection with Thomas Hardy, who restored the church and married the vicar's sister-in-law, Emma Gifford, it still allows natural light to flow in. Incorporating lines of verse and an image of Emma on her pony on Beeny Cliff, which haunted Hardy after his wife's death, this is the only church window I would go miles to see.