The Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy last night demanded to know who or what changed British attorney general Lord Goldsmith's view about the legality of the Iraq war.
And Mr Kennedy demanded a full public statement from Prime Minister Tony Blair after Channel 4 News broadcast the first documented detail of Lord Goldsmith's doubts about the legality of the conflict just 10 days before he told the British cabinet it would be lawful on March 17th, 2003.
Ironically the war returned to haunt Mr Blair just as he and chancellor Gordon Brown appeared on television to insist the prime minister had "never told a lie" about Iraq. It was a day in which churchmen and politicians had denounced Mr Howard's highly personal attempt to make Mr Blair's character a defining issue in next week's general election.
Mr Howard said: "It is now obvious from this legal advice that on March 7th, 2003, the attorney general raised specific reservations about the legality of war in Iraq. But Mr Blair has said that the attorney general's advice to the cabinet on the 17th of March was 'very clear' that the war was legal, and that the attorney general had not changed his mind."
Mr Howard continued: "It is obvious that he did. So what the public must now have an answer to is this: what, or who, changed the attorney general's mind."
Mr Kennedy said: "I have warned all along that this document would find its way into the public domain. It further undermines the prime minister's reputation that this has not come about as a result of his taking command of the situation."
Mr Kennedy continued: "This document raises the most serious questions over judgment in not making available to either the cabinet itself or the House of Commons the full caveats expressed at the outset by the attorney general." Mr Kennedy said they were now faced with further confirmation that Lord Goldsmith had "significantly" changed his advice over a period of 10 days. And he insisted: "It is imperative now that the prime minister and the attorney general come clean over the events which took place during those 10 days."
The Liberal Democrat leader added: "What is abundantly clear is not only that the prime minister made the wrong political judgment but that he went about justifying that judgment in a seriously misleading way."
The Conservative shadow attorney general Dominic Grieve said he was "completely clear" that "there has been a great deception" and that "material facts were concealed from parliament". He said if he had known about the attorney general's reservations it would not have been possible for the Conservatives to have backed the Commons motion backing the war.