Incidentally, during the hearings before Lord Widgery about Bloody Sunday which produced the infamous Widgery Report completely exonerating the soldiers who shot dead 14 unarmed protesters, who was there in the Government corner? Lord Hutton (or Brian Hutton, as he was called in those days).

He also fought the good fight in defence of General Pinochet, when he was held in Engkand after being arrested on a visit. Hutton was a Lord by that time, arguing that another senior judge should have been disqualified from taking any part in hearing the case, because he was associated with the extremist organisation Amnesty International.

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This morning a phone-in poll for an ITV discussion programme (Jonathan Dimbleby) asked viewers to say whether they thought the Huttin report was fair or a whitewash. I couldn't get through, because the lines were busy every time I tried - still 46,000 or so people did. Nine per cent thought it was a balanced report, 91% said it was a whitewash.