The Conservatives should start to bang a few heads together to shame the Labour Government into publishing the minutes of crucial Cabinet meetings when it was decided to invade Iraq alongside the United States.

It is downright outrageous and an insult to the British public that Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, has refused to allow these papers to be made public.

The decision to go to war was easily the most controversial of the entire Blair premiership, with millions of people taking to the streets of London and elsewhere to protest.

Surely we have a right to know what went on at these meetings, the outcome of which was to cost thousands of lives and untold misery.

The Government passes legislation like the Freedom of Information Act and then it cravenly crawls away from it, when it does not suit them.

Shameful.

Straw mumbled something to the effect that publication would not serve the interests of democracy – and this from a Government which boasts about transparency.

Now, embarrassingly for the Government, the former feisty Cabinet Minister Clare Short has spilled the beans.

She has disclosed that the Government is afraid to publish these minutes because they would disclose that there was virtually no discussion at all about this most crucial issue. Ministers, like puppets, danced at their leader's command and, shamefully, said nothing.

When Ms Short tried to develop the issue, she was, she said, shouted down.

What a mealy-mouthed lot they sound. And what a mealy-mouthed lot will Her Majesty's Opposition be if they let the Government get away with this.

But I would certainly not put my life savings on the Tories doing their duty by the electorate and pounding Ministers until they capitulate.