Truth is the first casualty not only of war but of politics. We have a political system that appears to reward parties, and the press, for arguing that truth and falsehood are as clearly distinguishable as black and white. The din of propaganda machines hammering out the message that nothing, or everything, is the fault of the Government of the day, frustrates calm reflection and makes rational thought more difficult.

The Hutton report has dismissed allegations that the Prime Minister deliberately falsified intelligence reports in order to strengthen the case for leading the country to war against Iraq, but we earnestly hope that this judgement will not make it more difficult for our public broadcasting corporation to challenge the arguments of governments in future, whatever their political complexion. We also hope that a sterile argument about whether a statement was wholly true or wholly false will not make it more difficult to judge whether the Government’s decision to go to war was wise and just and, still more important, whether it was a sound precedent for future actions.

Though we remain a loyal but critical friend to Tony Blair and his Government, we see no reason to change the view we expressed last year that war is not the best way of overthrowing regimes, however corrupt. Saddam was a tyrant to his own people, but every argument for attacking Iraq could have been made, with even greater force and logic, for attacking the Soviet Union in the period of the Cold War. There may be times when it is necessary to go to war, when it is the only way of averting a greater evil, but such a dreadful decision must be made on sound intelligence from sources that feel under no "subliminal" pressure to come up with evidence that justifies the course already favoured by the Government. The new enquiry set up under the chairmanship of Lord Butler ought to have the power to comment on how attentively and objectively ministers listened to their advisers.