The title of the book refers to the Iraqi WMD that were used as justification for the Iraq War which began at this time.

The story also deals with an issue that has affected Sue Townsend directly; she was registered blind in 2001, as a result of long-term diabetes.

In her review of the book, Mary Wakefield felt Mole's immature and angst-ridden personality has lost its appeal as he approaches middle-age, where it was endearing in a younger man.

Unfortunately he has to give up working as a media analyst due to his condition, since this job essentially involves reading newspapers.

Stationed in Iraq, he is positively encouraged by his father to fight in a war with no foreseeable end.

The best friend of Glenn, Adrian's son, and a private in the British Army, through which he is deployed to Iraq.

She is the "black sheep" of the Flowers family, having embraced the materialistic lifestyle that they claim to renounce.

After a life of left-wing piety Flowers later becomes a supporter of the right wing populist United Kingdom Independence Party.

Formerly an Oxford academic, specialising in Eastern European languages, she has more recently become a politician and a Labour MP.

A running joke in the book is that Adrian does not know whether Mr Carlton-Hayes' partner Leslie is a man or a woman; this is never made clear.

Although they are from different backgrounds, he and Adrian share an appreciation of literature, contempt for Michael Flowers, and a similar reservation about expressing their feelings.

It is revealed in Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years that Leslie is a man and implied they both left their wives for their relationship.

She is described as having particularly long hair (to the point in Adrian's opinion, where you feel awkward not commenting on it).

Poppy on occasion allies with Daisy in criticizing the feeble personality and lifestyle of Marigold.

At the end of the book, when his work is done, he is still living with Adrian's parents, in an apparent ménage à trois.

Parvez is an independent financial adviser, who unfruitfully attempts to persuade Adrian to rein in his spending.

At the end of her diary, a poem of hers is published in the Times, which criticizes the lead up to the Iraq war.