After disappointing results on Monday and a conveyor belt of announcements on misconduct and multi-billion pound fines, there is a palpable feeling of concern among some of HSBC's biggest investors - the institutions that own the bank and rely on its profits to invest in our pension funds and savings.

I have spoken to three significant holders of HSBC stock and they are not very happy. Change at the bank is too slow, they say, and it is time for a new, more radical approach.
Is it time, one significant investor asked, for a change at the top?
Douglas Flint has been the chairman of HSBC since the end of 2010.
He is widely viewed as a man of integrity who makes considered interventions on issues of bank regulation and governance.
He also heads a bank comfortably rated as "adequate" by among others Standard and Poor's for its capital position - a marker of a bank's financial health.
Mr Flint was the financial director at the bank through the financial crisis, a crisis that HSBC weathered better than most with its diversified structure and better management of its cash.
And unlike the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, it did not need a direct bailout by the tax payer.
But the credit that Mr Flint has built up over the years is being rapidly used up, according to the leading investors I have spoken to.
One major investor told me of his unhappiness at "a number of things". He said the performance operationally "is not great" and that the investment bank's costs were too high given the modest levels of profit.
"HSBC has been slow at addressing the problems, the bank at the moment is too big and they are constantly firefighting," he said.
"They have run too many red lights. A fresh broom as chairman might help."
Another large investor said he would be raising concerns with HSBC's performance with the bank itself in the near future.
To be clear, that investor made no mention of Mr Flint.
And it also seems that backing for the chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, remains strong.
The three major investors I spoke to supported Mr Gulliver.
I wrote here about why HSBC's annual results had disappointed investors.
And those close to Mr Flint say that he is well aware that he needs to "accelerate" the process of "shrinking to grow", selling businesses around the world to make the bank leaner and more profitable.
It has been an approach welcomed by investors at Lloyds, RBS and Barclays.
This afternoon Mr Flint will appear before the Treasury Select Committee to answer questions about the HSBC Swiss banking arm after allegations it helped customers evade tax between 2005 and 2007.
The key questions will be how much he knew about the problems and what was done to tackle them.
Mr Flint was finance director at HSBC at the time the bank bought Republic New York Corporation and Safra Public Holdings, the businesses that became HSBC Swiss.
As such he would have overseen what is called "due diligence" on the acquisitions - the process of checking that there are no uncomfortable truths hiding in the detail of the deals.
He was also finance director during the purchase of Household bank in America - which collapsed during the financial crisis and left the bank with billions of pounds of losses.
That issue "still sticks in the craw" according to a third leading investor I spoke to. "Don't under-estimate that," he said.
The third deal that Mr Flint faces questions over is the purchase of Mexico's Grupo Financiero Bital.
That operation ultimately landed HSBC with a fine by American regulators of £1.2bn after allegations that it handled money for drug cartels.
HSBC has made it clear that it has rapidly strengthened its compliance and governance systems and that as finance director of a then federated organisation run country-by-country (HSBC operated wholly separate businesses under an overall umbrella group) Mr Flint could not be expected to know the details of every business.
His job, Mr Flint's allies point out, was to ensure the bank's capital position was robust enough to withstand shocks, a responsibility they say he fulfilled and was praised for.
At the heart of this is the issue of "too big to manage".
"Where does responsibility lie?" was how the third disgruntled investor put it to me.
Ahead of HSBC's annual general meeting later this year, Mr Flint will hold a series of meetings with key investors and lay out the bank's plans for improving the business.
Some of the conversations are likely to be uncomfortable.


A trade unionist who championed the rights of working women in the early 20th Century is set to be honoured with a blue plaque, English Heritage said.

During World War One, Mary Macarthur fought for equal pay and better rights for women, including for those working in "appalling conditions" in factories.
On the eve of International Women's Day, a blue plaque will be unveiled at her home in Golders Green.
She lived at 42 Woodstock Road while she was at her most prominent.
Born in Glasgow in 1880, Ms Macarthur was elected president of the Scottish National District Council of the Shop Assistants' Union in 1902, and a year later she was the first woman to be elected to its national executive.
In 1918, women workers on London buses and trams were the first to strike for equal pay, a moment she described as "a landmark for the women's movement and for trade unionism".
She also fought to end "sweated" labour, which saw women working from dawn until 11pm for less than a living wage, such as chainmakers who worked in garden sheds hammering out chain links for as little as five shillings for a 50-hour week.
During her investigation of sweated industries, she contracted diptheria.
She died in 1921 at her home in Golders Green.
Anna Eavis, curatorial director at English Heritage, described Ms Macarthur as a "truly remarkable woman".
"She was tireless in her battle for equal pay and better working conditions and was responsible at least in part for the introduction of a minimum wage and the regulation of 'sweated' working," she said.
Ms Eavis added that it was fitting to remember her achievements with a blue plaque during Women's History Month and on the eve of International Women's Day on Wednesday.
Frances O'Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, said: "Thanks to her and others like her there were more than a million women in unions by 1918."
The blue plaques scheme, taken on by English Heritage in 1986, has been running since 1866 to commemorate the notable people who lived and worked in buildings in London, with the first plaque, to the poet Lord Byron, put up in 1867.
Figures show that only one in eight of the more than 900 plaques are in recognition of women.


A family of wild beavers has been seen in the English countryside in what is thought to be the first sighting of its kind in centuries.

Three beavers have been filmed together on the River Otter in Devon.
Landowner David Lawrence is mystified about where the animals have come from.
A spokesman for the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs said it was unlawful to release beavers in England and they were looking into what action to take.
A lone beaver was spotted on Mr Lawrence's farm in January and last July a woman claimed she saw a beaver on the River Otter.
But this is the first time anyone has reported a group of the animals on the river.
Environmentalist Tom Buckley filmed the beavers gnawing trees, grooming themselves and playing on the riverbank.
Steve Hussey from the Devon Wildlife Trust, said there was evidence that otters and beavers were sharing a waterway, for the first time in two or three hundred years.
"But this is not necessarily the way to go about having beavers reintroduced into the English countryside," he said.
"It would be better if it was done in a planned way, but now they are here we need to take a close look at the impact they have."
Mr Lawrence thinks the beavers could help reduce flooding on his land and improve water quality.
"We are quite happy for them to be here," he said.
"At some point we might have to go in and clear up some of the wood because it could wash on down to Tipton and cause a flooding problem down there."
Beavers were hunted to extinction in England and Wales during the 12th Century and disappeared from the rest of the UK 400 years later.
They were trapped for their fur and throat glands, which were believed to have medicinal properties.
Elsewhere in the county, two beavers have been kept in a secure and secret location in west Devon as part of a three-year experiment by the Devon Wildlife Trust to see if the animals can help restore wetland areas.
The pair are believed to have been to have been breeding after one kit was filmed last August.


Clare Hollingworth was the war correspondent who broke the news that German troops were poised to invade Poland at the start of World War Two.

She went on to report on conflicts across the world but it was that moment that defined her career.
She was by no means the first female war reporter, but her depth of technical, tactical and strategic insight set her apart.
And, even as she approached her 11th decade, she still kept her passport by her bed in case she should be called to another assignment.
Clare Hollingworth was born in Leicester on 10 October 1911 and spent most of her childhood on a farm. What should have been idyllic years were overshadowed by World War One.
"I remember the German bombers flying over the farm we lived in to bomb Loughborough," she reminisced. "And the next day we got Polly the pony and took the trap into Loughborough to see the damage they had done. "
She had set her heart on a writing career early on, much to the exasperation of her mother.
"She didn't believe anything journalists wrote and thought they were only fit for the tradesmen's entrance."
After school she attended a domestic science college in Leicester, which instilled in her a lifelong hatred of housework.
More interesting to her by far were the battlefield tours that her father arranged to sites as diverse as Naseby, Poitiers and Agincourt.
Eschewing the prospect of life as a country squire's wife, Hollingworth became a secretary at the League of Nations Union before studying at London University's School of Slavonic Studies and the University of Zagreb.
In 1936 she married a fellow League of Nations worker, Vandeleur Robinson, but soon found herself in Warsaw, distributing aid to refugees who had fled from the Sudetenland, the Czech territory occupied by the Nazis in 1938.
She had written the occasional article for the New Statesman and, on a brief visit to London in August 1939, she was signed up by the editor of the Daily Telegraph, Arthur Wilson, who was impressed by her experience in Poland.
In this period of heightened tension, the border between Poland and Germany was sealed to all but diplomatic vehicles. After borrowing a car from the British consul in Katowice and proudly displaying the union jack, she drove through the exclusion zone and into Germany.
While driving back to Poland, having bought wine, torches and as much film as possible, she passed through a valley in which huge hessian screens had been erected.
As the wind blew one of the screens back, it revealed thousands of troops, together with tanks and artillery, all facing the Polish border.
Her report featured on the front page of the Daily Telegraph on 29 August, 1939. Less than a week after becoming a full-time journalist, she had scooped one of the biggest stories of the 20th Century.
Three days later, Hollingworth saw the German tanks rolling into Poland. But when she phoned the secretary at the British Embassy in Warsaw, he told her it could not be true as negotiations between Britain and Germany were still continuing.
"So I hung the telephone receiver out of the window," Hollingworth later recalled, "So he could listen to the Germans invading."
Working on her own, often behind enemy lines, with nothing more than a toothbrush and a typewriter, she witnessed the collapse of Poland before moving to Bucharest, where she realised that her marriage was over.
"I thought that for me - and in a different kind of way for him - my career was more important than trying to rush back home," she reflected later.
Hollingworth spent a busy war in Turkey, Greece and Cairo. When Montgomery - who could not stomach the idea of a woman reporting from the front - captured Tripoli in 1943, he ordered her to return to Cairo.
She decided to attach herself to Eisenhower's forces, then in Algiers.
Though diminutive and bespectacled, Hollingworth was as tough as nails. She learned how to fly and made a number of parachute jumps.
During the latter part of the war, she reported from Palestine, Iraq and Persia, where she interviewed the young Shah.
After the war, Hollingworth, by now working for the Observer and the Economist, married Geoffrey Hoare, the Times's Middle East correspondent.
The couple were just 300 yards from Jerusalem's King David Hotel when it was bombed in 1946, killing 91 British troops.
The attack left her with a hatred of the man behind the attack, the Irgun leader Menachem Begin, who eventually became prime minister of Israel and won the Nobel Peace Prize.
"I would not shake a hand with so much blood on it," she explained.
In 1963 Hollingworth was working for the Guardian in Beirut when Kim Philby, a correspondent for the Observer, disappeared.
She was convinced that he was the fabled "third man" in a British spy ring that already included Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean.
After some detective work, she discovered that Philby had left on a Soviet ship bound for Odessa and filed copy to that effect with the Guardian.
But this second huge scoop was spiked by the paper's editor, Alastair Hetherington, who feared a libel suit.
Three months later, the Guardian ran the story, tucked away on an inside page. The following day the Daily Express splashed it on the front page, prompting the government to admit that Philby had, indeed, defected to the Soviet Union.
Hollingworth reported on the Algerian crisis and the Vietnam War. She was one of the first journalists to predict that American military muscle would not prevail and that a stalemate was inevitable.
She made a special effort to speak to Vietnamese civilians, away from the watching eyes of the US PR people, to ensure she accurately captured the views of those who were suffering the most.
Hoare died in 1966, and Hollingworth, who had become the Telegraph's first Beijing correspondent in 1973, retired to Hong Kong in 1981.
She spent her final years in the former colony and was a daily fixture at the Foreign Correspondents' Club, venerated by her colleagues.
Although she lost her sight later in life, Clare Hollingworth, a true journalist's journalist, retained an acute interest in world affairs right to the end.
She was once asked where she would want to go if the phone rang with a new assignment.
"I would look through the papers," she said, "And say, 'Where's the most dangerous place to go?', because it always makes a good story."


A riot at a prison in Guatemala has left at least eight inmates dead and more than 20 injured.

The authorities said the inmates were drinking on New Year's Eve when a fight broke out. At least two prisoners were beheaded by fellow inmates.
Rioters set fire to mattresses and bedsheets and cut power in the jail.
The prison, in the port city of Puerto Barrios on the Caribbean coast, was built for 175 prisoners but now houses more than 900.
Street gang members make up the bulk of Guatemala's prison population. Deadly gang warfare inside prison walls is not uncommon.
Severe overcrowding makes it hard for guards to control the prisoners - who are often heavily armed with home-made weapons as well as firearms smuggled into the jail.


Atletico Madrid forward Antoine Griezmann is a doubt for Saturday's derby against Real Madrid but did not suffer a broken foot in France's 2-1 win over Sweden on Friday.

Griezmann has a haematoma on his left foot but Atletico said "an injury to the bone was ruled out" after an X-ray.
The 25-year-old is his team's top scorer in La Liga with six goals.
Atletico host league leaders Real at the Vicente Calderon trailing them by six points after 11 games.
Griezmann has returned to Madrid, meaning he will miss France's friendly against Ivory Coast on Tuesday, and will start treatment on Monday.


Former Smiths singer Morrissey has used his autobiography to criticise the UK legal system and music business; and revealed his first full relationship came with a man when he was in his 30s.

The star was scathing about the judges in his 1990s legal battle with former bandmate Mike Joyce, describing one as the "pride of the pipsqueakery".
The Smiths' record label Rough Trade, he said, had been "brutally drab".
And he accused music paper NME of being out to "get Morrissey" in the 1990s.
The star, who is normally protective of his private life, opened up about a relationship with Jake Walters that began in 1994.
He wrote about how Walters followed him back to his house after meeting him at a restaurant and "steps inside and stays for two years".
"For the first time in my life the eternal 'I' becomes 'we', as, finally, I can get on with someone," he wrote.
He also revealed how he later discussed having a baby - or, as he put it, a "mewling miniature monster" - with Tina Dehgani, with whom he described having an "uncluttered commitment".
Giving his version of his 1996 court battle with Joyce, who was seeking 25% of The Smiths' earnings, Morrissey accused the drummer of "constant inaccuracies and assumptions vomited out with leaden fatigue" in court.
By Colin PatersonBBC entertainment reporter
This is Morrissey's chance to right every perceived wrong in his life - teachers, the NME, judges (50 pages), John Peel... Even The Thompson Twins, who stopped The Smiths' debut album from getting to number one.
However, it is a thoroughly entertaining read, with a laugh-out-loud moment every couple of pages. Michael Stipe is criticised for not brushing his teeth before an REM gig. His primary school teacher is described as the sort "who will never marry and will die smelling of attics".
There are revelations: Love affairs with a man and a woman; a thorough analysis of The Smiths' break-up (Johnny Marr was the "master", Morrissey "the servant"); and enough titbits to delight fans (he was a 100 metres champion, turned down a part in Friends, and is a fan of A-ha).
There is also beautiful writing. Manchester of the late '60s is described as "an old fire, wheezing its last, where we all worry ourselves soulless, forbidden to be romantic".
The group, one of the most revered bands in British music, split up in 1987 after five years together.
The presiding judge, John Weeks, came in for particularly scathing criticism, portrayed caustically in the book as an "unsmiling Lord of the Hunt, with an immutable understanding of the world of The Smiths".
"The pride of the pipsqueakery, John Weeks begins his judgment by falling flat on his face: He brilliantly announces to the world how The Smiths formed in 1992 - his judicial accuracy not to be questioned!" Morrissey wrote.
Geoff Travis, who signed The Smiths to Rough Trade, was another who failed to impress Morrissey.
When the singer and guitarist Johnny Marr turned up for an appointment, Morrissey claims he waved them away and refused to listen to their music until Marr "pinned him to the swivel chair".
Travis, Morrissey drily noted, "would have found himself wandering from kaftan to kaftan" if it had not been for The Smiths, who the singer claimed "saved his life and made it count in the long run".
The singer's bitter and long-running row with the NME began, he said, when a new editor took over and "allegedly called a staff meeting at which he has passed the command that his staff writers must now 'get Morrissey'".
In 1992, the magazine questioned whether he was racist after he appeared on stage with a Union Jack. It put him on its cover under the headline: "Flying the flag or flirting with disaster?"
The singer also detailed the brutality of teachers at St Mary's school in Stretford, Manchester, where each day was "Kafka-esque in its nightmare".
One teacher, he recounted, "stands and stares and stands and stares" at naked boys in the shower, while another was recalled for the way he rubbed anti-inflammatory cream into the young Morrissey's wrist after he had fallen over.
"At 14, I understand the meaning of the unnecessarily slow and sensual strokes, with eyes fixed to mine," Morrissey wrote.
The autobiography was published on Thursday as a Penguin Classic. It had been due for release in September, but was delayed by what Morrissey described as "a last-minute content disagreement".


Randox, the County Antrim healthcare diagnostics company, had another strong performance in 2014 with pre-tax profits of just under £13m.

That was just marginally below the firm's record profit in 2013.
Turnover was up slightly from £91m to £92m.
Randox is one of Northern Ireland's major exporters, shipping to 145 countries.
The firm continued to spend heavily on research and development, with its total R&D spending just over £8m in 2014.
At the end of 2013, the firm bought the former Massereene army base in Antrim to develop into a manufacturing and research facility.
Randox's owner Dr Peter Fitzgerald bought the 1,200 acre Dundarave estate in north Antrim in 2014.


An elderly motorist has died following a collision between his car and a tanker in East Sussex.

Emergency services were called to the A272 Goldbridge Road, in Newick, near Lewes, just after 13:00 BST on Thursday.
The driver of a Renault Megane, who was aged in his 70s, died from his injuries, police said. The tanker driver was unhurt.
Anyone who witnessed the incident has been asked to contact Sussex Police.


Four Australia players made first-innings centuries as the home side took firm control of the second Test against West Indies in Melbourne.

Captain Steve Smith (134 not out) and Adam Voges (106 not out) reached three figures on the second day after Usman Khawaja (144) and Joe Burns (128) had done likewise 24 hours earlier.
Australia declared on 551-3 before reducing West Indies to 91-6.
The hosts won the first of three Tests by an innings and 212 runs.
Smith and Voges resumed on Sunday with Australia 345-3, and their partnership was only ended on 223 when Smith declared.
The captain's 134 saw him replace England skipper Alastair Cook as the leading run-scorer in Tests this year, while Voges moved past 1,000 runs in his first year as a Test player.
The Windies had reached 35-0 for tea but lost six wickets for just 48 runs on the resumption, with James Pattinson, Nathan Lyon and Peter Siddle taking two apiece.
Siddle dismissed Denesh Ramdin and Jason Holder for ducks off successive deliveries at the start of the 41st over but Carlos Brathwaite kept out the hat-trick ball before guiding his side to the close alongside Darren Bravo.


Egypt has freed a prominent investigative journalist whose arrest was condemned by Amnesty International and the United Nations.

Hossam Bahgat's release was confirmed by Gasser Abdel-Razek, the director of a rights groups founded by Mr Bahgat.
"He called me and said he's been released from the military intelligence building," Mr Abdel-Razek said.
Mr Bahgat, 37, was arrested on Sunday, reportedly accused of publishing false information.
He was questioned in connection with an article about the trial of army officers convicted of plotting a coup.
Amnesty International called the arrest "yet another nail in the coffin" of freedom of expression in Egypt.
Mr Bahgat, who founded the human rights group Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, has published a series of investigative reports in Mada Masr, an independent Egyptian newspaper and website.
Mada Masr said it was not clear whether Mr Bahgat still faced charges following his release.
Tens of thousands of people are thought to have been jailed in a crackdown on Islamist supporters and dissent since the army overthrew President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.


Lewis Hamilton said he would regroup after a dispiriting Singapore Grand Prix as he attempts to get his world title challenge back on track.

His team-mate Nico Rosberg reclaimed the lead by eight points with victory at Marina Bay as Hamilton came third.
"It doesn't always go well and this has been a difficult weekend for me and my side of the garage," Hamilton said.
"But we will reunite and regather and understand what went wrong and try to rectify it for the next race."
It was Rosberg's third victory in succession and eighth of the year, compared with six for Hamilton.
But the world champion pointed to the fact that he had already come back from a 43-point deficit to Rosberg after the first four races of the season as a reason for optimism.
"All in all, with everything that's gone on this year, I'm still in the fight," Hamilton said. "There's still a long way to go and I'm going to give it everything I've got."
Hamilton said he had never got on top of the car all weekend.
"Struggled with the balance, struggled getting on to the pace myself and then in the race struggled with the brakes, which meant I had to drive slow until they cooled down, which they never did until close to the end," he said.
But he paid tribute to the performance of Rosberg, whose victory was founded on a brilliant pole position lap, which was 0.7 seconds quicker than Hamilton could manage in qualifying.
"I don't really have a reaction [to losing the championship lead]," Hamilton said. "Nico did a fantastic job and the points he gained today he fully deserved."
Rosberg, as he has done all season, minimised the importance of the championship position between the two drivers.
"I'm not focused on points," he said. "As I always say, I'm just happy with the win."


Rolf Harris will be released from prison on Friday and is due to appear in person at his indecent assault trial next week, a jury has been told.

Mr Harris, from Bray, Berkshire, is being tried at Southwark Crown Court on four counts of indecent assault against three teenagers between 1971 and 1983.
The judge said Mr Harris, who denies all charges, will be granted bail.
Jurors have already been told Mr Harris, 87, was convicted and sentenced following a trial in 2014.
Mr Harris had been attending his trial via video link.
During the trial on Thursday, jurors heard one of the entertainer's alleged victims deny that she "fabricated" evidence against Mr Harris.
Earlier defence lawyer Stephen Vullo had accused one of the alleged victims of jumping on the "compensation bandwagon".
But when asked by prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC, she said: "I absolutely have not.
"One of the reasons perhaps it was easier for me to tell police is because I had told people over the years."
She added that whenever she saw the former Animal Hospital presenter on TV, she would tell people "he's a pervert".
The TV personality is accused of touching a 16-year-old girl's breasts and putting his hand between her legs after a recording of TV show Star Games in 1978.
He is also alleged to have put his hands up a 14-year-old's skirt at a children's music event in the Lyceum Theatre in 1971.
Another woman has accused Mr Harris of touching her breasts after filming an episode of Saturday Superstar in 1983.
On that occasion, he is alleged to have said: "Do you often get molested on a Saturday morning?'
Mr Harris denies all charges in the case.


The US pushed the UK into military action in Iraq "too early", a former British ambassador to the UN has said in the wake of the Chilcot report.

The long-awaited report said ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair had overstated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein - and military action was not a last resort.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, UK ambassador to the UN in 2003, said Mr Blair had wanted a UN resolution backing action.
But he told the BBC senior US officials thought it was a "waste of time".
The Chilcot report was published on Wednesday having taken seven years to compile.
Sir John Chilcot - chairman of the UK's Iraq War inquiry - concluded Mr Blair had sent ill-prepared troops into battle and had "wholly inadequate" plans for the aftermath.
The 2003 invasion had not been the "last resort" action presented to MPs and the public, Sir John said, adding that there had been no "imminent threat" from Saddam Hussein, and the intelligence case was "not justified".
Sir Jeremy said he felt Mr Blair had wanted to wait longer before taking military action.
It would have been "much safer" to give weapons inspectors in Iraq another six months to continue their work, he added.
"I felt that at the time, the British felt it at the time, I think the prime minister felt it at the time, that the Americans pushed us into going into military action too early," he told BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight.
Mr Blair had wanted to secure a UN resolution before the conflict but US officials were not committed to a resolution, he added.
"The Americans weren't genuine about it - but the prime minister was genuine about it - because he thought there was a chance that Saddam could be made to back down before we had to use military force.
"And George Bush for a while agreed with him. But other people behind George Bush didn't agree with him and thought it was a waste of time."
General Tim Cross - the most senior British officer involved in planning the war - said former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would not listen either to the UN or the UK about the aftermath of the invasion.
He said the US had dismantled the Iraqi army and the ruling Ba'ath party without consultation.
The US administrator to Iraq at the time, Paul Bremer, told the BBC's Newsnight that British officials had been thoroughly briefed on the strategy for dealing with the Ba'ath party.
"That particular decision was approved by the president of the United States, the secretary of defence, by the joint chiefs of staff of the United States.
"It was previously discussed by my national security adviser with authorities in London 10 days before it was issued - he received no objections," he added.
The US State Department said it would not respond to the Chilcot report's findings as it was focusing on present issues in the Middle East.
"We are not going to examine it, we are not going to try to make an analysis of it or make judgement of the findings one way or another," a spokesman said.
"Our focus is on the challenges we have in Iraq and Syria right now."
Following the publication of the report, Mr Blair said he took responsibility for "mistakes in planning and process" identified by the inquiry.
He said he felt "more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know" for the grief of those whose loved ones died.
But he insisted he could look the families in the eye - and the nation - and state that he did not mislead anyone over the invasion, the service personnel did not die in vain, and he was right to do what he did.
A spokesman for some of the families of the 179 British service personnel and civilians killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2009 said their loved ones had died "unnecessarily and without just cause and purpose".
He said all options were being considered, including asking those responsible for the failures identified in the report to "answer for their actions in the courts if such process is found to be viable".
Prime Minister David Cameron, who voted for war in 2003, told MPs it was important to "really learn the lessons for the future" and to improve the workings of government and how it treats legal advice.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn - who voted against military action - said the report proved the Iraq War had been an "act of military aggression launched on a false pretext", something he said which has "long been regarded as illegal by the overwhelming weight of international opinion".


British Superbikes will return to new-look Snetterton next year in pursuit of the track's first 100mph lap.

New corners were added to lengthen the Norfolk circuit in 2011, and Australian Josh Brookes produced a record 99.07mph Superbike lap last weekend.
"The new Snetterton 300 layout provides for great racing," series director Stuart Higgs told BBC Radio Norfolk.
"We're now just under a 100mph lap record. It makes us even more eager to come back and smash that barrier."
More than 40,000 spectators watched Shane Byrne extend his championship lead to 45 points with a double victory in the round-three event at Snetterton.
The track revamp cost £2.5m and Higgs believes it has resulted in more exciting racing.
"There were three changes to the lead in just one lap at the weekend, such is the nature of the circuit," he said.
"We love coming there. We get a great reception from a hugely knowledgeable crowd. I'm sure many will be back for the British Touring Cars round later this year."


We're in "the golden age of television", according to Hand of God star Ron Perlman, who says his new drama - from Hollywood director Marc Forster - proves it.

"Naked, in a public fountain in broad daylight - speaking in tongues." Ron Perlman is describing his arresting opening scene in new series Hand of God.
"Whoever talked me into doing that scene should be arrested, that's for sure," quips the actor.
It's our introduction to Perlman's anti-hero Pernell Harris - a morally corrupt judge who appears to have found religion and lost his mind as he struggles to deal with a series of shocking family events.
Best known for FX biker series Sons of Anarchy and the big-screen adaptations of the Hellboy comic books, Perlman says it's a "challenging" role that's "never boring".
The ten-part drama is Amazon's latest television signing as the retail giant continues its bid to rival streaming service Netflix and take on the traditional US networks. A "completely original" tale, that's often "sick, twisted and disoriented".
Topics tackled include suicide, religion, rape and mental illness - and that's just in the first episode.
But without a young online platform keen to take risks, Perlman says Hand of God might never have got made.
"Being one of the guys who was taking it around town to find a producing partner, halfway through the process I became aware that we were selling something that not everyone was going to have the balls to step up to," he tells the BBC.
For Perlman, writer Ben Watkins and director Marc Forster, Amazon's willingness to "embrace the uncomfortable" sealed the deal.
"Not only did they embrace it," reveals Perlman, "but they encouraged us to go as far with it as our imaginations would allow us to."
Watkins "unique" story persuaded film director Forster (World War Z, Quantum of Solace, Finding Neverland) it was time to try television for the first time.
"[For] a few years I wanted to do a TV series and just hadn't found anything that inspired me," says Forster.
"Ben's writing had a dark emotional part and humour as well. It's not just relentlessly dark, it has hopeâ€¦ and I'm entertained."
It does get dark though. Judge Harris' son is in a coma, having attempted suicide after being forced to watch his wife being brutally raped. Harris suffers a mental breakdown, is born again at a dubious chapel and goes on a vigilante hunt to find the man responsible.
"The last thing we wanted was a show where people would be like, 'uh, that was pretty good'," says Watkins.
"We wanted people to have intense feelings about this show. It wasn't something you just passed the time with."
The show was green lit for a full series by Amazon last year, after the public gave the pilot the thumbs up - a "genius idea" says Perlman.
"I would gladly trade being professionally criticised, [with] your average audience member [who] has no agenda other than 'I want to be entertained'."
Perlman says the end of his last show Sons of Anarchy after six seasons was "bittersweet" and he found it "hard" saying goodbye to his character Clarence 'Clay' Morrow.
But, despite being a self-confessed "cinema freak", he "insisted" on doing another TV series, because it's such a "unique period" for the genre.
"The thing that puts us in the golden age of television - which we're in right now - is the fact that there are all these new companies that are vying for attention.
"They come to the party knowing that the only way to gain market share is by being original and by being fresh and by doing things that nobody's ever seen before with regards to storytelling, which makes for a phenomenally exciting environment."
Dana Delaney - who plays Parnell's sometimes "ferocious" wife Crystal - is equally excited about the opportunities streaming services like Amazon, Netflix and Hulu can offer actors.
"My last show was Body of Proof and I took a year off because it had taken so much out of me. I was in every scene, it was mentally and physically exhausting - so I said to my agents, 'don't send me anything!'
"Then they called me up and said 'we've got this meeting'â€¦ and I was like, 'that's the future! I want to do that'."
The Desperate Housewives and China Beach star says it was a stark contrast to the hand-holding that goes on at traditional TV networks.
"It's like when you give children freedom and say, 'you know we're going to leave this up to you - be responsible!'. And it's interesting to see whether you rise to the occasion or not.
"At first I was like 'wow, I get to swear! I get to smoke pot, I get to be naked!' And then you realise, well, 'how do I want to use those so I can tell a good story?'
"You know swearing is fine, but you shouldn't do it all the time."
For Forster - who ventured into blockbuster territory with World War Z - directing Hand of God gave him the chance to return to a style closer to earlier films, like Oscar-winner Monsters Ball.
"People go [less and less] to see those movies in the cinema - so some of the greatest writing today is in TV, because these independent movies are not getting made any more," says Forster.
He joins a growing list of movie directors turning to TV; Netflix secured David Fincher to debut House of Cards, Martin Scorsese directed Boardwalk Empire's pilot episode for HBO in 2009, and both Steven Soderbergh's Red Oaks and a Woody Allen TV project are coming soon on Amazon.
Forster can't comment on his fellow director's motivations - but after disappointing Bond fans with Quantum of Solace, and having to re-shoot the end of World War Z, he found one element of small-screen storytelling refreshing.
"At the end of the movie, the audience has an expectation these days that everything has to be wrapped up - there has to be a conclusion, we don't want to leave the cinema dissatisfied.
"You can have a bad beginning, bad middle - [if] the last 15 to 20 minutes was good, they believe the movie was great.
"In telly, the opposite - the more things [left] open, or questions, the more you want to watch."
The Hand of God team - which also includes Andre Royo (The Wire's heroin addict Bubbles), Garret Dillahunt, Alona Tal and British actor Julian Morris - are hoping they have left enough questions to get picked up for a second season. Watkins meanwhile has a "five-series vision" for the show.
But Delaney has a dream back-up plan if it doesn't work out - Game of Thrones.
"It's the perfect treadmill show. It gets me out of bed, I get to watch Game of Thrones - yay! - and I'm screaming at the television, like 'no!'.
"I love it. I want to be on that show."
Hand of God Season One is available on Amazon Prime now.


North-eastern Sri Lanka has been off-limits to journalists and most other outsiders since the civil war ended in 2009, but the authorities have now granted BBC correspondent Charles Haviland access to much of the area.

I was with the army as they detonated left-over munitions near a major battle scene.
"Here, crouch behind these sandbags," they told me as we stood, in protective clothing, a few hundred metres from the detonation site. "If shrapnel comes anywhere near, just duck."
I decided to retreat a lot further back. The thud was impressive.
We were in the devastated land which saw the last bitter fighting of the war. Many tall palmyrah trees had lost their tops.
Half-submerged in the arid ground I saw a single flip-flop and a plastic shoe. Who had worn them?
This is where tens of thousands of people cowered - trapped between the Tamil Tigers who conscripted their children and shot those trying to escape - and the army bombardments.
Large tracts are still mined. There are buildings sliced in half; buses with an end missing. Most poignant are the mundane things: someone's trousers, a plastic chair, cushions, a rusting bedstead.
I looked towards a damaged Catholic church (there are both Catholics and Hindus among the local Tamil population). The church had been cleared of mines and a Sinhalese soldier took me inside. "I'm a Roman Catholic," he told me - a minority in the mainly Buddhist military.
Sections of the roof had been ripped out, leaving a zigzag pattern of light. The soldier stood by the broken glass of a small shrine to Mary and told me he felt consoled that 13 of the 14 Stations of the Cross were undamaged.
Earlier I met a man born and bred in this place. He had lost his brother and his sister as this area was being besieged. "We were climbing over bodies," he said.
Only now, after demining, are families beginning to return to their plots in these villages, many coming on recce visits from refugee camps.
Surviving buildings are mostly unsafe and will have to be destroyed. And people here have little with which they can rebuild.
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Not far away, life seems more normal. A Tamil fisherman wades into the Nanthidakal lagoon and casts his net. There is a jetty and fishing boats here, a low causeway across which trucks trundle into the town of Mullaitivu.
There is little evidence of what happened here in 2009. Huge numbers of Tamils fled from the besieged zone across this lagoon. On its shore the body of the dead Tiger leader, Prabhakaran, was filmed, his scalp covered to conceal the fact that much of it was missing.
There is something which jars. There are many new signs in the neighbourhood, giving for instance the name of the lagoon or the government's account of what happened here during the conflict.
Indeed, a war "tourist trail" is already springing up for Sri Lankan tourists. But nearly all the signs are in Sinhala and English only - not in Tamil, the local language and, of course, the language of the people who lost so much.
This is repeated all over the area: at a museum of captured Tiger equipment; at Prabhakaran's bunker, now a tourist spot.
At the bunker there are in fact many Tamil visitors including schoolchildren from nearby, and expatriates from Germany. A Sinhalese soldier, fluent in Tamil, acts as their guide. That is impressive. But there is barely a word of Tamil on the signs.
At two places we ask the military why this is. "There was not anyone who could speak the language, but we would like to put up Tamil signs soon," one soldier says.  Another, though, tells me he has mentioned it to the higher authorities - "but nobody is interested".
What does this say for reconciliation efforts in this country, whose war sprang partly from the fact that Tamils had said they felt like second-class citizens?
There are more immediate concerns. Along with the struggle to rebuild, there is little employment available.
By chance we met a former Tiger militant. He said there were no opportunities and no jobs. But he did not want war again.
The army presence is still massive. Travelling across northern Sri Lanka is like criss-crossing from garrison to garrison.
In fact the number of soldiers on patrol has fallen sharply. They have been asked to reduce their visibility. And many places like the army-run cafes and shops which had sprung up, have now been closed.
But the government says it still fears a resurgence of the Tamil Tigers and it is not loosening its grip.
In one place an officer told us the army's intelligence network had actually expanded. "We've been asked to keep a register of what people do and where they go," he said. "We even monitor schoolchildren's activities. We know what people eat for their lunch."
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With a new administration, new pockets of political power form, and Kansas conservatives are among those benefitting from the Trump White House.

The Midwest, at least to some in Washington and Los Angeles, is known as "flyover country", a place you glimpse from an aeroplane while travelling from one place that matters - the East coast - to another place that matters - the West coast - or vice versa. The writer Sarah Kendzior has a whole book, The View From Flyover Country, on this phenomenon.
President Trump has turned this notion upside down.
Once ridiculed and diminished by those in Washington, Kansans are now a force to be reckoned with. Those from flyover country - and especially Kansas - are now in power.
Several days ago, three Republicans from Kansas, Michael O'Donnell, Dalton Glasscock and Victoria Snitsar, arrived in Washington on the same flight.
O'Donnell, a county commissioner from Wichita, bolted out of the airport gate, carrying a garment bag. Glasscock, who had worked as his campaign manager, was texting as he left the plane.
Meanwhile Snitsar, a college student and an intern at a Topeka lobbying firm, headed off to a meeting for conservative women.
All three came had come for the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States.
Trump's strong support in Kansas helped O'Donnell and other candidates win elections at the state and local level.
"They said: 'Yeah, I'll vote for Michael if you put a Trump sign in my yard," Glasscock says, recalling campaign door-knocking in his district in Sedgwick County.
Kansans were drawn to Trump because they're industrious and "self-reliant", says John Barker, a Republican state representative from Abilene. They saw Trump as a kindred spirit.
"They're very independent," Barker says, adding that Republicans in the state supported Trump because of his "anti-establishment" streak.
That doesn't mean all Republicans who live in Kansas are fond of Trump.
Snitsar, a University of Kansas student, supports Trump and admires his top adviser Kellyanne Conway. "I want to be her," Snitsar says.
Yet Snitsar, who was born in Moscow, said she's worried about Trump's relationship with President Vladimir Putin, as well as other aspects of the administration.
She reflects the views of many in Kansas: she's wary, but she's supporting him for now.
Here at the start of the Trump administration, Kansas conservatives have cachet within the Republican Party, and also in Washington.
In some cases they have parlayed this newfound status into positions of influence.
On Monday, a Kansas congressman, Mike Pompeo, was sworn in as the new CIA director..
Former Senator Bob Dole helped arrange Trump's phone call with the Taiwanese president, telling the Wall Street Journal he exerted "influence" over Trump's decision to speak with Tsai Ing-wen, a shift in almost forty years of US policy.
Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, has spoken about homeland security issues with Trump during the transition. He says he was an early advisor on Trump's executive orders on immigration and voting rights.
Trump orders building of border barrier
Did millions vote illegally in the US?
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During one of his visits, Kobach was photographed carrying a copy of his plans for homeland security. The document described "extreme vetting" of individuals who want to come to the US.
Trump administration officials are also considering the possibility of adapting Governor Sam Brownback's ideas for tax reform, as writers for Governing and other media organisations have reported.
Brownback believes tax cuts for the wealthy generates revenue flows and create jobs, though in practice his programme wasn't a success.
"It gutted state revenue and created a budget crisis," says Patrick Miller, a political scientist at University of Kansas in Lawrence.
Brownback and Kobach are ultraconservatives, individuals whose positions fall on the right side of the spectrum.
In contrast Dole, a former presidential candidate himself, belongs to a group that O'Donnell describes as "the mods".
The moderates and the ultraconservatives in Kansas don't always agree with each other, or with Trump.
"There's conflict," Barker says, adding that some conservatives balked at Trump's $1tn ($800bn) infrastructure plan, because they don't like big-government initiatives.
And not all Kansas Republicans are getting what they want from the administration.
Some thought the president would name Kobach as his immigration czar, but Kobach remains without a job in Washington.
Brownback was reportedly on a short list for agriculture secretary, but the nomination instead went to former governor of Georgia, Sonny Perdue.
Still Kansas Republicans have wielded influence over the president. Maybe it's happenstance: the state has a lot of Republicans, and some "saw an opportunity," says Miller.
Or as Mark Dugan, Brownback's former campaign manager, puts it: Kansas has a lot of "good folks, ready to serve".
Others believe Kansas' success in the new administration comes from a combination of personal qualities and a set of traits specific to Kansas.
It's a state awash in social conservatism, free-market values and political contributions from David and Charles Koch, brothers whom journalist Jane Mayer once described as "fiercely libertarian".
"It's a perfect storm," says Michael Smith, a professor at Emporia State University in Emporia.
"You have social conservatives. You have a libertarian climate that especially correlates with the Kochs.
"Maybe this produced the type of politician that is perfect for the Trump administration - risk-taking, blunt-spoken and easier to frame as anti-establishment."
That administration has put them in a new zone  - figuratively and literally.
"My phone still hasn't switched," O'Donnell said, glaring at his mobile he stood in the lobby of the Hart senate office building on the day before the inauguration.
It was 10:30 in Washington but he - or at least his phone - was stuck on central time, an hour earlier.
O'Donnell headed for the ground-floor office of Pat Roberts, a Republican senator from Kansas. Glasscock picked up inaugural tickets. Afterwards they visited other congressional offices, carrying the legal-sized envelopes of the tickets for themselves and their friends.
In one office, O'Donnell stopped in front of a mirror, smoothing down his hair. He left - and rushed back a moment later to get his Ray-Bans.
In looks and manner, he embodied the brash, new kind of conservative flourishing under the Trump administration.
On Inauguration Day, Snitsar stood in front of the US Capitol building with others from Kansas and listened to the president's speech.
Drinking mint tea in a restaurant several hours later, she said the inauguration reminded her of a scene from The Lion King - "with the rain and all that".
Not everybody saw the event as magnificent. While she and others from Kansas celebrated, protesters set a limousine on fire.
Glasscock posted a picture of the vehicle in flames, commenting: "Y'all really like losing."
He was gloating, a trait not usually associated with Kansans. But a new era had begun, and a new kind of Republican was being set loose.
Follow @Tara_Mckelvey on Twitter.


Passenger satisfaction with ScotRail services has fallen but remains higher than the UK as a whole, despite problems with delays and cancellations.

The latest National Rail Passenger Satisfaction (NRPS) figures showed that 83% of those surveyed said they were satisfied with their ScotRail journey.
This was four percentage points lower than the previous survey last June, and seven points lower than a year ago.
The figure for the UK as a whole in the most recent survey was 81%.
The fieldwork for the survey, carried out by Transport Focus, was conducted between September and November 2016.
Transport Minister Humza Yousaf said he was "disappointed" by the survey results, but said ScotRail's improvement plan was "delivering some results".
It was the first to be carried out following the five month closure of the upper platforms at Queen Street Station and last summer's industrial action by RMT union members.
ScotRail Alliance Managing Director Phil Verster - who announced last week that he will be leaving his post - said the rail operator was disappointed that its satisfaction figures had not increased.
Mr Verster added: "However, they come on the back of a difficult year for our customers. Operating a busy and complicated network is challenging at the best of times - and we are doing so during one of the largest investments in modernisation since Scotland's railway was built in Victorian times.
"There is no alternative, though, to doing the work.
"The decision to invest in the railway's future has been put off too many times and it is in the best long term interests of passengers that we get on and do it. It is then our job to do whatever we can to keep people moving during this work and to better communicate when things go wrong and explain why they go wrong."
The work at Queen Street followed on from a similar project at Winchburgh Tunnel, and is part of the multi-billion pound investment in Scotland's railway network.
It also includes the electrification of the line between Glasgow and Edinburgh, similar work on the Shotts line, electrification of the line between Stirling, Dunblane and Alloa and a major upgrade of the line between Aberdeen and Inverness.
There were also several large-scale incidents during the survey period - including a major one at Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh that caused widespread disruption.
Transport Focus chief executive Anthony Smith said: "The results around the country are disappointing. Scottish passengers and those travelling in peak hours in London and the south east are bearing the brunt of poor performance.
"The timetable on parts of the London and South East's railway can be a work of fiction which passengers cannot rely on. As passenger numbers rise, parts of the rail network will remain brittle until welcome improvements are in place and working."
Last November, Transport Minister Humza Yousaf apologised to ScotRail passengers following criticism of ScotRail's reliability since Abellio took over the contract in April 2015.
Mr Yousaf, who also suggested rail services could be taken into the public sector in the future, had previously ordered ScotRail to draw up an improvement plan, which was published in full on 29 November.
Figures published earlier this month showed the reliability of ScotRail trains significantly improved in the weeks after the improvement plan was published.
The PPM data showed 89.7% of trains arrived within five minutes of schedule in the four weeks to 7 January. This was a 6% rise on the previous four weeks, and a 2.8% improvement on the same period last year.
But ScotRail's annual performance was 90% - below the 91.3% target set in Abellio's contract for the franchise.
Mr Yousaf was questioned by MSPs about the latest figures at Holyrood.
He said he was "disappointed" by the results, but insisted progress had been made during "an exciting and challenging period for rail in Scotland".
He said: "Let me be clear, ScotRail is not yet performing at the level I would like it to. However, let's also be clear, neither is the situation the apocalyptic scenario often painted by our opponents."
Scottish Conservative MSP Liam Kerr said it was right Mr Yousaf came to the chamber in the wake of the change of management at ScotRail, saying the government had "driven Mr Verster from his post".
He said the government had been responsible for "ill-thought-through announcements regarding public sector bids and the future of the franchise", "uncosted raids" on funds and "the situation on the ground deteriorating" for commuters, asking if new boss Alex Hynes would be given the government's full support.
Mr Yousaf replied that he would not take lectures from a Tory on rail services, adding that he did not recognise the Scottish rail service described. He added that the government would back Mr Hynes, and hoped all MSPs would.
Labour's Neil Bibby said passengers were fed up with the level of delays, cancellations and skipped stops, asking if Mr Yousaf would take responsibility if targets were not hit.
The minister replied that "it must be very depressing to live in the mind of Neil Bibby, where everything seems to be going wrong", insisting there had been improvements in services.


The Finance Minister Simon Hamilton has said political parties are "very, very close" to a deal on the Stormont budget.

Ministers are meeting on Thursday to discuss a draft document on the executive's finances for 2015/2016.
If the draft budget is not agreed by Friday, Stormont will lose out on a £100m loan from the Treasury.
Mr Hamilton told BBC One's Nolan show he believed "a couple of hours' work" would finalise the details.
The finance minister has proposed cuts in his draft budget paper.
He said: "We have been working constructively, working positively and I think we are in the position where by the time the executive meets tomorrow afternoon we will have a deal in place."
Parties have been negotiating over the allocation of funds to the executive departments.
The Finance Minister said there would be a "significant degree of protection" for the health budget and also indicated that the Departments of Education and Enterprise, Trade and Investment would be prioritised.
On Wednesday, Sinn Féin executive minister Michelle O'Neill has said "progress was being made" in budget negotiations.
Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt has warned that if Northern Ireland parties give up on getting a budget deal they "might as well give up on devolution".
Alliance minister Stephen Farry has said there is "a reasonable prospect" of the draft budget for Northern Ireland being agreed by Friday.
Mr Farry has said any deal must be sustainable.
Sinn Féin minister Michelle O'Neill has also said she is hopeful that agreement can be reached and that "progress is being made" in negotiations.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and the Department of Health and Social Services would get more money next year under the draft budget proposals.
The biggest losers would be the Departments of Culture, Arts and Leisure; Employment and Learning; and Environment.
Each is facing budget reductions of almost 13%.
Ulster Unionist minister Danny Kennedy whose Department for Regional Development is facing a 4% cut in its budget said more talks were needed before he could gauge a "definitive outcome".
On Tuesday, Employment Minister Stephen Farry said the impact of the proposed cut to his department would be "severe".
He said it would amount to a "four figure reduction" in places in each of the Northern Ireland universities under the current proposals and "many thousands of places being lost within further education".
"It will seriously limit our ability to invest in skills, that is the key driver of the transformation of our economy," he added.
On Wednesday, Gerry Campbell, chief executive of Colleges Northern Ireland, said it was "absolutely vital" that 16-19 year olds in further education are protected "in the same way" as those being educated in "school settings".
"In a scenario where schools' budgets are ring-fenced, failure to protect funding for young people in further education or other forms of training not only creates an inequality for those young people, but risks fracturing the skills pipeline," he added.
Mr Hamilton has said next year's budget is "the most challenging task this executive has ever faced".
He has suggested the Department of Health receives an additional £200m for front line services. However, other areas within the department's responsibilities, such as the fire service, would be subject to cuts.
Sinn Féin has said it will have further discussions on the budget paper circulated by the finance minister.
Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers has said the job of resolving budget questions would be taken from the Stormont parties, unless they agree a draft budget by the end of the month.
Ms Villiers said that while there was some flexibility in the process of consultation, it was crucial the parties stuck to the timetable.


Construction staff working at the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria have voted to take industrial action in a row over health and safety, the Unite union has said.

The dispute also concerns their sub-contractor employer's refusal to allow a full-time union shop steward.
Workers will decide what type of industrial action they will take, at a meeting next week.
Sellafield Ltd said it was "not directly involved" in the dispute.
A spokesman said the discussions did not involve any of the company's employees.
"We hope all parties can reach agreement. Safety and security at the site will be unaffected by any resulting industrial action," he said.
Talks broke down on Wednesday and 98% of Unite members supported action, the union said.
Unite regional officer Steve Benson said members had "lost patience" with management.
"All they are asking for is their rights for a co-worker to become a union shop steward at the Sellafield site to represent construction workers and keep them safe."


The effects of climate change are already evident in Europe and the situation is set to get worse, the European Environment Agency has warned.

In a report, the agency says the past decade in Europe has been the warmest on record.
It adds that the cost of damage caused by extreme weather events is rising, and the continent is set to become more vulnerable in the future.
The findings have been published ahead of next week's UN climate conference.
They join a UN Environment Programme report also released on Wednesday showing dangerous growth in the "emissions gap" - the difference between current carbon emission levels and those needed to avert climate change.
"Every indicator we have in terms of giving us an early warning of climate change and increasing vulnerability is giving us a very strong signal," observed EEA executive director Jacqueline McGlade.
"It is across the board, it is not just global temperatures," she told BBC News.
"It is in human health aspects, in forests, sea levels, agriculture, biodiversity - the signals are coming in from right across the environment."
2C or not 2C
The report - Climate Change, Impacts and Vulnerabilities in Europe 2012 - involving more than 50 authors from a range of organisations, listed a number of "key messages", including:
As it currently stands, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has set a target of limiting the rise in global mean temperature to 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels.
But the report's authors warn that even if this target to mitigate warming is met, "substantial impacts on society, human health and ecosystems are projected to occur".
To limit the impacts, experts say effective adaptation strategies need to be developed in order to minimise the risk to nations' infrastructure, homes and businesses.
The European Commission is expected to publish its European Adaptation Strategy in 2013, outlining measures it think will help the 27-nation bloc deal with future climate shifts.
Examples of adaptation measures include using water resources more efficiently, adapting building codes to be able to withstand extreme weather events and building flood defences.
Prof McGlade said such measures would be essential in order to climate-proof the EU.
"I think what the European Commission and other parts of the world are finding is that whilst it is important to understand what is happening at the global level, it is what is happening at the regional and local levels that will really determine how economies will weather the storm," she said.
The report said the cost of damage caused by extreme weather events had increased from 9bn euros (Â£7bn) in the 1980s to 13bn euros in the 2000s.
One of the report's authors, Andre Jol, head of the EEA's vulnerability and adaptation group, added: "We know that the main increase in damage costs from natural disasters has not been from climate change, as such, but more as a result of an increase in wealth, people and infrastructure in risk areas.
"But one of the key messages from the report is that in the future, with projected increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme events, we know that climate change will contribute to the increase in the cost of damage from extreme events."
'Lack of action'
On Monday, the World Bank published a report that warned that the world was "on track to a 4C [increase by the end of the century] marked by extreme heatwaves and life-threatening sea-level rise".
It added that the world's poorest regions would be hardest hit by the warming, which was "likely to undermine efforts and goals".
"A 4C warmer world can, and must be, avoided - we need to hold warming below 2C," said World Bank group president Jim Yong Kim.
"Lack of action on climate change threatens to make the world our children inherit a completely different world than we are living in today."
However, the UN Environment Programme (Unep) warned that it was still possible to achieve the 2C target but time was running out.
Data in the Emissions Gap Report showed that annual greenhouse gas emissions were now "14% above where they need to be in 2020".
Unep executive director Achim Steiner said: "While governments work to negotiate a new international climate agreement to come into effect in 2020, they urgently need to put their foot firmly on the action pedal by fulfilling financial, technology transfer and other commitments under the UN climate convention treaties."
The reports have been published ahead of the annual two-week UN climate conference, which starts on Monday in Doha, Qatar.


A five-year-old boy suffered life-threatening injuries when a suspected learner driver ran him over before smashing into a house.

The boy is said to be in a critical but stable condition after being hit in Gabriel Street, Saffron Walden, Essex.
One neighbour told BBC Essex she believed the boy had been "dragged quite a way" across the road.
An Essex Police spokesman said: "Police believe the driver was a learner and there were L-plates on the vehicle."
For more on this and other stories, visit BBC Local Live: Essex
The driver of the car, a Renault Megane, and a passenger have been voluntarily interviewed by police. Inquiries are continuing.
Officers want to speak to any children accompanying the boy at the time of the accident, which happened shortly before 17:15 GMT on Wednesday.
It is understood the occupants of the house have had to move out due to structural damage.
Neighbour Kim Harris told BBC Essex: "I heard acceleration, tyres screeching and then a crash, bang. It made the house shake.
"I noticed the car first, then noticed the boy a couple of yards away. He was scooped and handed to the parents as they came running out.
"It was mayhem, there was lots of people shouting and screaming. He'd been dragged, I think, quite a way."


The son of an IRA murder victim has claimed he suffered sexual and physical abuse in care.

Jean McConville was taken from her home in Divis Flats in Belfast in 1972.
She was murdered and secretly buried on a beach in County Louth by the IRA.
Her son Billy told the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry he was abused by some De La Salle Brothers and physically abused by a lay teacher in Rubane House in County Down.
He said: "It was one hell of a nightmare".
He also said he believed there was "a conspiracy between the RUC and De La Salle Brothers" over what was happening at Rubane at the time.
Mr McConville, who is now 48, claimed he was also abused at Rubane House by the notorious paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth.
He told the BBC that he also blames the IRA for the abuse he claims he suffered.
Two other witnesses also made allegations of physical abuse against the same lay teacher named by Mr McConville.
One claimed he was "kicked and punched" while another said he suffered "a black eye and a burst nose".
However, in a statement read to the inquiry, the former teacher said he always carried out his duties with "care and compassion".
He described the allegations against him as "complete fiction" and "totally ridiculous".


Roddy MacDonald scored a hat-trick as Kyles came from behind to down Fort William 5-3 on the opening day of the Marine Harvest Premiership season.

Kingussie opened their campaign with a 1-1 draw at home to Lochaber.
And in an upset of the previous season's form book, Oban Camanachd travelled to Drumnadrochit to record a 3-1 victory over Glenurquhart.
Defending champions Newtonmore, Lovat and Skye were sidelined by postponements.
MacDonald got Kyles off to a flying start at Fort William with two goals in the opening quarter of the game. The match was suddenly turned on its head just before half-time, though, when a Daniel Stewart strike was followed by Bryan Simpson squeezing in a double just ahead of the whistle.
Ross MacRae drew Kyles level soon after the restart and they went ahead again when MacDonald completed his treble. Dunky Kerr added a late fifth to secure an opening win for the 2015 Premiership runners-up.
At the Dell, Pat Toal drew first blood for Lochaber just before half-time and so it stayed for half-an-hour. Then Ryan Borthwick grabbed a point for Kingussie, whose last game was a 2-0 relegation play-off victory over Kilmallie.
It was only in the latter stages of last season that Oban Camanachd escaped that play-off themselves but they were in fine form for their visit to MacTavish Cup holders Glenurquhart.
Willie Neilson bagged a penalty and Daniel Cameron also scored to put Camanachd 2-0 up within 24 minutes. Neale Reid provided a vital lifeline for Glenurquhart just before half-time but the home side could not build on it.
Malcolm Clark got Camanachd's third.
The most significant result in the National Division, at the Winterton, was only a goalless draw but it involved sides which were previously two leagues apart.
Inveraray arrived in that division after finishing bottom in the Premiership while visitors Bute got there as they recovered from a traumatic period by winning the South Division title.
Elsewhere in the second tier, Beauly won 5-2 at Inverness and Glasgow Mid Argyll eclipsed Ballachulish 4-0 at Yoker.


The United States regained the Walker Cup with a 17-9 victory against Great Britain and Ireland on Long Island.

Resuming 8-4 ahead after the opening day, they consolidated their position by sharing the morning foursomes 2-2.
That left just three-and-a half points needed from the 10 singles matches, and the contest was won when Nathan Smith held off Nathan Kimsey in match five.
It was the 35th US win since the top amateurs' event began in 1922, with GB and Ireland on eight wins, and one tie.
With a four-point deficit going into the singles the visitors needed some inspiration but in the opening game Neil Raymond bogeyed four holes out of five and lost all of them to Bobby Wyatt, who won their match 4&3.
2011: GB & I 14-12 USA (Royal Aberdeen)
2009: USA 16½-9½ GB & I (Merion GC)
2007: USA 12-11 GB & I (Royal County Down)
2005: USA 12½-11½ GB & I (Chicago GC)
2003: GB & I 12½ -11½ USA (Ganton GC)
Max Orrin then had two bogeys and a double bogey to lose three successive holes to Justin Thomas, who clinched a 6&4 victory with his third birdie of the round.
World amateur number one Matt Fitzpatrick, the 18-year-old from Sheffield, birdied the first two holes and earned a point for GB and Ireland with a 3&2 success against Michael Weaver, but wins for two mid-amateurs - post-college players - 45-year-old Todd White and 35-year-old Smith ensured victory for the American team.
"Everybody played so hard as a team there were no individuals here, all these guys gave their hearts and I can't say enough about them," an emotional US captain Jim Holtgrieve said.
"I think Bobby Jones and the team of 1922 are all here today and saying good things about us."
GB and Ireland counterpart Nigel Edwards admitted: "They holed out a little bit better and the short shots, the distance control, is where they did us.
"If some matches yesterday afternoon had gone our way down 18 it could have been a lot different but we needed to do the simple things well this week, people have to hole putts and we haven't holed enough putts.
"One weekend doesn't make them bad golfers, hopefully we'll have a few available for two years' time, the ones who turn pro I'm sure they'll learn from this."
The next edition of the Walker Cup will be played at Royal Lytham and St Annes in September 2015.
Sunday foursomes:
C Whitsett/B Wyatt (USA) beat N Kimsey/M Orrin (GB & I) 2&1
M Weaver/T White (USA) lost to M Fitzpatrick/N Raymond (GB & I) 3&2
M Homa/M Kim (USA) beat G Porteous/R Pugh (GB & I) 1up
P Rodgers/J Niebrugge (USA) lost to G Moynihan/K Phelan (GB & I) 2up
Sunday singles:
Bobby Wyatt (USA) beat Neil Raymond (GB & Ire) 4&3
Justin Thomas (USA) beat Max Orrin (GB & Ire) 6&4
Michael Weaver (USA) lost to Matt Fitzpatrick (GB & Ire) 3&2
Todd White (USA) beat Rhys Pugh (GB & Ire) 4&3
Nathan Smith (USA) beat Nathan Kimsey (GB & Ire) 4&3
Cory Whitsett (USA) lost to Callum Shinkwin (GB & Ire) 2up
Michael Kim (USA) beat Garrick Porteous (GB & Ire) 4&2
Max Homa (USA) lost to Kevin Phelan (GB & Ire) 2&1
Jordan Niebrugge (USA) beat Jordan Smith (GB & Ire) 6&5
Patrick Rodgers (USA) beat Gavin Moynihan (GB & Ire) 1up


Scientists in the South American country of Argentina have discovered a Tree Frog that can glow in the dark.

It's official name is Hypsiboas punctatus and it's the first frog ever discovered that can do this.
They're not alone though, other creatures such fish, scorpions and birds have been known to be able glow.
Scientists believe the frogs glow as a way to communicate with each other.


All but one council area of Nottinghamshire, including Nottingham city, has voted to leave the EU.

Labour MP for Bassetlaw, John Mann, a Leave campaigner, said people voted to leave because of immigration, zero-hour contracts and job prospects and said a "divide in Britain" had been exposed.
Mansfield voted most strongly to leave, with 70.9% backing Brexit.
Rushcliffe, which includes the towns of West Bridgford and Bingham, was the only area to vote for Remain.
It saw the East Midland's highest turnout.
Meanwhile, the turnout in Nottingham was the fifth lowest in the UK at 61.8%.
Leave won by a tiny margin of just over 2,000 votes in the city.
Mr Mann said his party was "somewhat out of touch".
"With the middle classes largely voting remain because they see it as benefiting them and the working classes largely voting to leave because it dis-benefits them - that's the divide in Britain," he said.
Latest reaction and updates from Nottinghamshire
Like large parts of England, Nottinghamshire overwhelmingly voted to leave the European Union.
The margin of victory in Bassetlaw, Ashfield and Mansfield was huge, with less than a third of people voting remain.
Arguably the biggest surprise came in Nottingham, which narrowly backed Brexit.
Affluent Rushcliffe was the only area to vote Remain.
Overall Nottinghamshire voted 57.9% for Leave and 42.1% for Remain.
Conservative Anna Soubry, the MP for Broxtowe and a Remain campaigner, tweeted it was "a dreadful decision".
"People like me were told you're scaremongering, we don't want to listen to the experts," she said.
"All that has been unfortunately proved to be accurate. We have made a very, very, very bad mistake."
Labour MP for Nottingham North, Graham Allen, said David Cameron had "gambled with Britain's future" by calling for a referendum, saying people voted to leave "in protest" at the current government.
Turnout was 81.5% in Rushcliffe - the highest in the East Midlands and the only council area to vote Remain.
The vote was close elsewhere, including in Nottingham, where the split was 50.8% Leave, 49.2% Remain.
Alice, a caller to BBC Radio Nottingham from the Carrington area of the city, said she felt "frightened of the future".
"It potentially gives a mandate for a lot of prejudice against people who have immigrated here, whether from the EU or elsewhere," she said.


A man has escaped from custody while being escorted into a police station wearing handcuffs.

Aurimas Butkys, 25, ran off earlier, shortly after he entered Boston Police Station in Lincolnshire.
He had been detained on a extradition warrant in connection with an assault in Lithuania, Lincolnshire Police said.
The suspect was last seen on Tower Street wearing a dark t-shirt and brown shorts. The force has asked for any sightings of him to be reported.


Swindon Town chairman Lee Power says manager Luke Williams could be given a new contract "fairly soon".

Swindon have won six of their ten League One games since Williams took interim charge in December after Martin Ling resigned citing "health reasons".
In January, the 35-year-old former Brighton Under-21 and reserve team coach was made manager until the end of the 2015-16 season.
"Luke's come in and results speak for themselves," Power told BBC Wiltshire.
"That is something that we're looking at at the moment and, you know, it might happen fairly soon."
Swindon have risen to 12th in the table under Williams' management and are now only seven points outside the play-off spots.
"This season has been a bit transitional, it wasn't meant to be like that but through injuries and other reasons it's turned into one of those," Power said.
"At the moment we're on a good run and if we finish strongly it might actually be a fruitful season.
"But definitely, the crux of the team and a lot of the players that wouldn't necessarily have played if those injuries hadn't occurred have come on and are now some of the strongest players in the side
"It's definitely a team we're excited about for next season."


A man who repeatedly stabbed a takeaway owner for forgetting his regular chips order has been jailed for 14 years.

Leon McTaggart, 29, attacked Narinder Sidhu, 51, at Simply Fish and Chips in Hagley Road West, Quinton, on 7 November.
Police said the victim was stabbed five times when he confronted McTaggart after he broke a pane of glass.
McTaggart, of Hagley Road, Birmingham, was convicted of wounding with intent at a previous hearing.
Police have said Mr Sidhu was left fighting for his life.
McTaggart launched the assault after slamming his fists on the counter and asking his victim: "Do I look like an idiot?"
The judge, who heard the victim still suffers difficulties in sitting and lying down, said McTaggart kicked back his legs, smashing a glass door.
He told him: "I don't know why you acted in the way you did.
"Whether you were on drugs I don't know. On the one hand this was irrational behaviour of the most violent kind, on the other you have no history at all of serious violence."
Mr Sidhu did not see a knife during the attack and initially believed he had been punched.
He was admitted to intensive care, placed in an induced coma, underwent surgery, and spent two weeks in hospital before being discharged.
McTaggart, who was arrested at his bedsit after being identified through an appeal on social media, stabbed Mr Sidhu in the arm, chest and back.
He has previous convictions for burglary and was on bail for throwing a phone at a police officer when the stabbing occurred.
McTaggart denied possession of an offensive weapon and Judge John Warner, sitting at Wolverhampton Crown Court, asked the charge to remain on file.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Mr Sidhu said he was still anxious that his life would be shortened as a result of his injuries.
He said:  "I truly believed that I faced death."


In the light of Ed Balls's speech today, which claims that the Tories would cut public spending by a further £70bn if they were to win the general election, I need to slightly amend my judgement that next week's Budget is bound to be the dullest on record.

Because Balls's analysis has nudged me to remember that there is one big policy judgement that George Osborne and David Cameron have to make between now and Budget day on March 18 - which is whether to stick to the plan outlined in December's autumn statement to generate an overall budget surplus of £23.1bn in 2019-20.
This really matters, because it is the Tories' pledge that they will stick to the "fiscal aggregates" of that Autumn Statement, which include that £23.1bn surplus, which means that the cuts they would have to make are so much bigger than a Labour government would have to do.
The point is that Labour has promised only to balance the current budget - ignoring investment - by the end of the next parliament.
That would give Labour £50bn more to spend than the Tories every year from then on - which is a colossal sum, equivalent to half the annual budget of NHS England.
But here is the thing.
The Tories' more general fiscal policy is to generate a budget surplus in all normal years. So in theory they could revise their fiscal plans for the next parliament and simply go for a miniscule surplus by 2019-20.
One consequence would be they would have to find £23bn less in cuts.
Even so, there would be a sizeable difference between the cuts the Tories would have to find and those required by a Labour government.
As a minimum, Labour would have £27bn odd more to spend every year than the Tories - because of its "rule" allowing it to borrow to finance investment.
In practice, given the prime minister's desire for personal tax cuts, a Tory government would probably have to find around £40bn more cuts than Labour.
And although cuts on that magnitude would not be painless or easy, the Institute for Fiscal Studies calculates that the current government has already announced and legislated for tax increases and cuts to welfare spending that should deliver a third of these savings.
To be clear, finding a bit less than £30bn of additional spending cuts, as a Tory government would have to do, would be challenging - in that departments have endured years of squeeze already, and welfare savings are notoriously hard to deliver.
But Ed Balls's central argument today that it would be completely impossible for a Tory government to protect health spending is probably not quite as watertight as he implies.


Rising British star Lando Norris had an impressive first test in a current Formula 1 car with McLaren.

Norris, 17, set the second fastest time behind championship leader Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari at the Hungaroring on Wednesday.
McLaren racing director Eric Boullier said Norris "impressed us all with his maturity, professionalism and speed".
"He's certainly an asset to our test-driver line-up - not to mention a potential star of the future," he said.
"His feedback with the engineers has been valuable and accurate."
Norris' fastest lap of one minute 17.385 seconds was 0.164secs quicker than the qualifying time of double world champion Fernando Alonso in the McLaren at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday.
But the times cannot be directly compared because Alonso was on slower tyres, track conditions were different and the specification of the car Norris was using is not made public.
Norris, who is a front-runner in the European Formula Three series, said on his Twitter feed on Thursday: "How insane was that? Thanks, McLaren."
McLaren replied: "Was totally mega, Lando."
After the test, Norris said in a McLaren statement: "Getting used to the car was a bit of a challenge at first, but by the end of the day I felt very comfortable. I got a lot of laps under my belt and I really enjoyed the experience."
Another British rising star was driving at the test - Mercedes young driver George Russell. The 19-year-old was eighth fastest without having the opportunity to go for headline lap times on the fastest tyres like Norris.
Russell, who races in GP3 this season, tested the 'halo' head protection device which will be used in F1 for the first time next season and said that he had no problems with it - and that in some circumstances it aided visibility.
"I had a much better view with the halo than I expected," he said. "When the sun was coming down at the end of the day, it blocked the sun from my eyes.
"From a driver's perspective, the visibility is completely fine. The only hindrance could potentially be seeing the start lights.
"Getting in and out of the car with the halo takes a bit of experience. I struggled initially, but after a few trial runs I was fine."


Historic photographs including one showing the last time the River Trent froze over are to go on display in an exhibition about extreme weather.

The show at Lakeside Arts in Nottingham will explore people's own recordings and reactions to unusual weather throughout history.
Drawings of skies affected by ash cloud after the eruption of Mount Krakatoa in 1883 will also be displayed.
Curator Georgina Endfield said weather was "woven into the human experience".
Professor Endfield said the explosion of Mount Krakatoa, in Indonesia, which killed about 40,000 people, had been perplexing for people in the UK.
Only a handful of experts knew what was causing the "crazy sunsets" that would have "terrified" many people, she said.
Prof Endfield said the exhibition aimed to explore how big world events such as Krakatoa are "interpreted locally".
The River Trent in Nottingham has not frozen over since February 1895 when the temperature was -1.81C (28.7F).
The ice was thick enough to skate and ride bicycles on, but curiously there was no snow during that period.
"It was the archetypal Victorian winter," said the curator.
"The Trent and [River] Thames froze over but people had lots of fun in what could have been a traumatic event."
Floods feature heavily in the exhibition and Prof Endfield has found that these extreme events tend to "draw people together".
The Great Flood of 1932, in Derby, when the Markeaton Brook culvert overflowed during heavy rain, is an example of this, she said.
A souvenir booklet was produced to raise money for those affected, but it also celebrated how the city's people overcame the problems caused by the flooding.
However, she said extreme weather that caused bad harvests and food shortages, for example, tended to trigger the opposite effect and in some cases had led to rioting.
The exhibition opens on Thursday at the Weston Gallery, Nottingham Lakeside Arts, University Park, Nottingham.


An entire Constituency Labour Party group (CLP) has been suspended following allegations of infighting, bullying and voting irregularities.

It is understood complaints centre around issues within Manchester Gorton CLP following a meeting on 2 July.
They are believed to be prompted by the possibility of Sir Gerald Kaufman's seat becoming free if he stands down at the next election.
A party spokesman said the CLP cannot hold meetings while an inquiry is held.
A North West Labour spokesperson said: "Any complaints of bullying or intimidation and allegations of misconduct are always taken very seriously by the Labour Party."
The Manchester Evening News reported a letter sent from Labour's head office states that the allegations relate to the conduct of members "both during and outside of Labour party meetings" as well as the "conduct of members of the CLP executive committee in administering internal ballots".
But a Greater Manchester Police spokesman said they were yet to receive any complaints and are not aware of reports that discussions between the force and the CLP have taken place.
The Gorton seat is currently held by 86-year-old Sir Gerald, one of the longest serving members of the Commons.


Ronnie O'Sullivan won a record seventh Masters title by coming from behind to beat Joe Perry 10-7 in the final at London's Alexandra Palace.

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Perry, in his first Triple Crown final at the age of 42, led 4-1 but missed a straightforward red for a 5-1 lead.
O'Sullivan won seven frames in a row to move 8-4 ahead before Perry, helped by breaks of 117 and 92, fought back.
But O'Sullivan, 41, sealed victory to defend his title and move ahead of Stephen Hendry's six Masters wins.
Victory means O'Sullivan claimed the newly named Paul Hunter trophy - in honour of the three-time champion who died of cancer aged 27 in 2006 - as well as the £200,000 winners' prize money.
It also ensured the world number 13 ended a run of three defeats in finals this season and defended the title he won last year by thrashing Barry Hawkins 10-1.
"Joe played a brilliant tournament, a really good match and he should've beaten me. I got lucky - I stole it," said O'Sullivan.
"Joe will come again and he is a tough competitor. I'm just relieved to have got over the line. The fans have been unbelievable and I really enjoyed this week."
On winning seven Masters title, O'Sullivan added: "It is great to get some records, I still have the World Championship one to get.
"When I was younger I was just happy to win one, so to win seven, someone up there is looking after me."
'The Rocket' had to deal with a virus in his first-round final-frame victory over Liang Wenbo and needed to repair a broken cue tip in the semi-final against Marco Fu, which he said was the "best match he has ever won".
In the final, O'Sullivan seemed unsettled by noise coming from a backstage table early on, but pulled himself together to level the match 4-4 at the interval.
He claimed a 32-minute ninth frame to move into the lead for the first time, and then knocked in breaks of 85 and 68 to take control.
At 8-6 and with Perry fighting back, O'Sullivan made his first century of the match - a break of 112 - and 859th of his career.
The Englishman then held his nerve to win a 20-minute tactical frame and claim his 17th Triple Crown title.
Along with seven Masters - the first of which he won in 1995 - he has also claimed five World and five UK Championship crowns, and is now just one behind Hendry's record of 18.
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Perry has only won one ranking title - the 2015 Players Championship - but seemed to take to the occasion well, with breaks of 72, 74 and 115 giving him a surprise lead.
But rattling the final red in the jaws of the pocket when presented with the opportunity to go 5-1 up seemed to dent his confidence.
Fair play to Ronnie, even when he is not at his best he is still amazing
Although he rallied by clawing back three frames late on, O'Sullivan's substantial advantage was too great to overturn.
"I've proved a lot, that there is still some life left in me and it has given me the belief to go on and win a big one," said Perry.
"At 4-1 up I got a bit carried away and it was not until I was 8-4 down I thought, 'I'm going for it'.
"It's given me the taste to go for more finals, it's a great feeling to be involved and you take snooker up for nights like this.
"Fair play to Ronnie, even when he is not at his best he is still amazing."
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Three-time Masters champion Steve Davis: "To win seven Masters, he has made this event his own, and in such an entertaining way as well."
Former world champion John Parrott: "Ronnie's application and attitude has been spot on today. He was not at his best but was able to grind out the result."
Ronnie O'Sullivan (Eng) 10-7 Joe Perry (Eng)
First session: 24-79 (72), 16-101 (53), 86-27 (59), 31-90 (74), 0-115 (115), 67-40, 61-21, 81-23 (55)
Second session: 51-14, 124-4 (68 & 56), 67-12, 108-15 (85), 1-117 (117), 1-92 (92), 130-0 (112), 1-106 (53), 59-39
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Welsh fans came to praise him, Australia came to stop him, but everyone wanted to see Shane Williams make his 87th and final appearance in Wales colours.

Typically of his country's record Test try scorer there was one last touchdown to take Williams' tally to 58, although he left it until the final play of the game.
Australia already had the contest won as the clock ticked past 80 minutes, spoiling the full fairytale ending for the 34-year-old who was desperate to sign off with a win at the Millennium Stadium.
But still Wales continued to hammer at the Wallabies and after the forwards had made the hard yards, replacement scrum-half Tavis Knoyle released his backline.
Williams had come off his left wing into midfield and spotted Australian centre Berrick Barnes coming quickly out of defence, a pace or two ahead of his team-mates.
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As he had on so many other occasions, Williams sensed his opponent's minor error and shifted himself a step right out of the direct line of the charging Waratah.
Williams' namesake Scott, who had started at 13 instead of the injured Jon Davies, played his part by putting extra pace on his pass to find the little wing on the outside shoulder.
A shimmy completed the toreador's feint, leaving Barnes sprawling on the Cardiff turf, and Williams was through the gap.
Barnes' midfield partner Anthony Fainga'a made a desperate dive but his fingers brushed past Williams' shoulders as he stamped on the accelerator.
The 69,537-strong crowd were already on their feet and their roar of approval echoed off the rafters as a somersaulting Williams touched down, treating his adoring public for one final time.
If ever there was a moment that encapsulated a man's career that was it, with Williams showing all the vision, athleticism, determination and joy of playing the game that has marked his 11-year Test career.
"There has been no better place to play than at the Millennium Stadium... it's where it started for me and where it has finished," Williams said.
"The support at the end was fantastic. Because of them I was bawling my eyes out."
After the game, Australia coach Robbie Deans said that Williams is a "once-in-a-generation player", while Wales boss Warren Gatland believes the Ospreys wing is a "catalyst" for those around him.
Williams's Wales try record puts him some distance clear of previous holder Gareth Thomas, who scored 40.
Two more tries for the 2009 British and Irish Lions against South Africa brings Williams's full international total up to 60.
That leaves only Australia great David Campese (64 from 101 Tests) and Japan's Daisuke Ohata (69 in 58 Tests, including 29 plundered against the minnows of Korea and Chinese Taipei) ahead of him in the world standings.
That is not bad for the Amman Valley product whose 5ft 7in, 12st 8lb frame is anathema in the professional game where size and power dominate.
Fellow wing great Ieuan Evans, who scored 33 tries for Wales, said the national side will miss Williams' ability to conjure scoring chances.
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"Shane is a magician, so many wonderful images throughout his career. His ability to score tries from nothing, his wonderful balance, his sheer will to win belied his size," Evans said.
"That acceleration, that explosiveness was what marked Shane out, with the ability to beat people inside or on the outside - that just puts defenders ill at ease at all times.
"His talent was there for all to see and Shane had the ability to put a smile on three and a quarter million people whenever he pulled on that jersey for Wales."
Gerald Davies, another revered Wales great who like Williams was all about poise and pace, added his praise for his fellow wing's accomplishments.
"Shane was a brilliant, scintillating player, swift, agile, quick-thinking, clever and brave," said Davies.
"He was an unique talent in the modern game and I've always thought that because of his subtlety and side-stepping he was the small man's revenge!
"It's important to have the physical abilities… but it's important also to be in the right place at the right time to support the player with the ball, and to pick the correct angles to run."
Rugby fans will still be able to see Williams bamboozling opponents for the Ospreys for some time to come, but the number 11 shirt in the red of Wales will now be handed to another.
It is a small jersey to get into, but very big boots to fill.


Seven years on from the disappearance of Claudia Lawrence, her mother has said she thinks she is alive and "being held somewhere against her will".

The chef from York, North Yorkshire, went missing on 18 March 2009 at the age of 35.
It was recently revealed that four men held as part of the police investigation would not face charges.
Speaking to BBC Look North, Joan Lawrence said: "I have no instinct whatsoever that she isn't alive".
Her comments come on a legal milestone which states a person may be legally declared dead after being missing for seven years.
The previously arrested men, who are all in their 50s and from the York area, were held last year as part of a review of the initial investigation into the case.
North Yorkshire Police said up to 20 detectives and police staff had worked full-time on the review for more than two years at a cost of nearly Â£800,000.
Officers believed the investigation had been compromised by the "reluctance of some, and refusal of others, to co-operate" with the force.
Mrs Lawrence said she was constantly surrounded by "reminders" of her daughter, whatever she was doing.
She said: "Sometimes I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall, but I get through every day.
"There's somebody out there who knows something, but I have no instinct whatsoever that she isn't alive, I've had no cut-off feeling at all.
"In my opinion she's being held somewhere against her will and I want people to imagine if it was their child, how would they feel?"
Claudia Lawrence disappearance timeline
About 100 police officers were dedicated to the investigation at its height, but the figure has since dropped.
Martin Dales, a friend and spokesman for Miss Lawrence's father Peter, said: "It seems that we're all back to square one.
"It's really quite depressing especially as someone is clearly withholding the information needed."
A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said: "The investigation team will continue to thoroughly assess any new leads and information.
"We remind those who we suspect are withholding key information about Claudia that we will not give up our quest to find the truth."