Whether any of the officials who are now coming forward felt similar pangs of conscience at the time about the discrepancy between what they knew and what their government was saying is not known, but what is certain is that none of them were prepared to act on them if they did.

The Iraq War was the culmination of a process that started in 1994 with the rise of New Labour and reflected its heady psychological brew of arrogance and self-loathing. The arrogance came from a quasi-Leninist belief in Labour as the agent of some great historical mission on behalf of the masses - a traditional conceit of Labourism, admittedly.

Robin Cook once commented that reforming the House of Lords was like Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot - "(it) never arrives and some are rather doubtful whether it even exists".

Joan Ruddock MP will today lobby her colleagues for a change of working hours in the House. It's quite a modest request really: she suggests close of day at 6 or 7pm midweek for business in the House, enabling MPs to get back to their young children in time to read them a bedtime story if they are within commuting distance.