I can’t, however, apologise for what we did because I believed the decision I took was in the best interests of this country, that region and the wider world – and I still do. I had a choice, faced with the knowledge of his long defiance of his UN obligations, to leave Saddam in power or to remove him I chose to remove him In this case, there was no middle way. This newspaper and many of its readers have strong disagreements with me over Iraq. A man who made such gravely impaired decisions should not be allowed to run the country.. And that is why I will be supporting Reg Keys, the father of a brave soldier killed in Iraq, who is standing in Tony Blair’s Sedgefield constituency.I urge everyone who has lost loved ones in Iraq to ensure that Mr Blair is not re-elected. Well I am going public now.There are a lot of people in Liverpool who are angry at having been lied to by this Government. They know that one of their own died because we went to war on a lie.I just hope the British people, when they vote, will remember Ken and all the soldiers who have died because of this Government’s ill-judged war.

I had offered him the hand of friendship and he had bitten it, and in a cathedral of all places. If in the heat of the moment in my bid to save my brother’s life I had said something on a personal level, then I was sorry.Jack Straw replied: “Not at all, no offence taken.” He then pulled me aside and whispered: “Oh by the way Paul, you have a rapport and good connections with the media. Do you think the next time you are on air you could mention this fact, reiterate it, you know apologise, because Mr Blair is rather concerned about his re-election chances.”He wanted me to say in public that I was sorry; I couldn’t believe it; I was being humble, having taken the message of forgiveness to heart and here a politician appeared to be taking immediate advantage.I was flabbergasted. I told him I had no personal grudge against him, and considered him a gentleman. It was his handling of the Iraq issue that I was against.Tony Blair replied: “I understand, it’s quite all right Paul.”I also thanked Jack Straw for attending and apologised if I had offended him in any way personally. My whole family is disgusted and disillusioned by the failure of the British authorities to help in our six-month ordeal to recover my brother’s body.I felt dutybound to speak out about the fate of my brother, but at his memorial service at Liverpool Cathedral I thanked the Prime Minister for coming.

We have still not been given the small comfort of knowing where Ken’s body is buried It is not something I would ever wish upon another family. I don’t think we can expect anymore dossiers like those around Iraq. However, I do expect more background papers in the future.The shock of the 9/11 attacks, combined with the situation in Iraq, provided no end to the lessons of war. However, will our learning continue?In the future, we can expect the press to be pressing for greater transparency and accountability from the government with respect to intelligence. No doubt, legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act will encourage this transparency.. The news that Douglas Wood, an Australian contractor, was taken hostage brought back memories of my brother, Ken Bigley, who was held captive and killed.

The “Secret State” – that is, intelligence and the Secret Service – is once again a developing area of British politics. “The Old” refers to intelligence during the Cold War, while “The New” is the intelligence that has been revived since the terrorist attacks in America on 11 September and the war in Iraq.
I believe that UK intelligence assessments are as fundamental now as they were in the 1940s and 1950s.In many ways, the UK is the most experienced country in the world for intelligence services. We’ve had four centuries of carrying out secret service activity in one format or the other when, for example, the United States has only been carrying out intelligence work of a similar nature since the 1940s.However, while the UK may be the oldest and therefore most experienced intelligence service, in today’s world it is far from the most advanced. Secret service systems can be very revealing of the countries they exist to protect; in some ways intelligence is the last identity of the country. The secret services are the only real radar of a country’s political health.The question now is how much of the new secret state will reach parliament, the press, and – most importantly – us, the people.