Conflating "the 45 minute claim" and "Gilligan's report" as if they are the same thing does not help anyone, including Parliament.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of Gilligan's report, the rest of the press reported the 45 minute readiness as if British interests - Cyprus being mentioned - were in clear and imminent danger. Hoon knew this to be misleading, as he made clear to Lord Hutton's inquiry (see my transcript links above), and he (possibly in conjunction with other departments) allowed the rest of the press to continue with this without making any attempt to correct it, whatever representation they made to the BBC.

Hutton declared this matter to be outside his remit, and it is clearly going to be outside the remit of the new inquiry if, as widely predicted, it restricts itself to how the intelligence processes got things wrong.

That is why I believe that this new inquiry will lower people's trust in the Government still further: the questions that exercise the public will still not be investigated. I can hear people saying "Dodging the issue" and "whitewash" from here ...