To give Mr Waldegrave the full benefit of the doubt, perhaps his failure was honest but it was failure, nevertheless. The case against Sir Nicholas is one of incompetence and misjudgement. He made serious mistakes in advising ministers that they had to sign unprecedentedly sweeping orders denying documents to the defence in the Matrix Churchill trial. Sir Nicholas failed to alert the court to the misgivings Michael Heseltine had in signing the orders and so seemed to be happy with the thought that innocent men might go to jail to save the Government from political embarrassment. The Prime Minister should procure the resignations of both men.The second necessary step is for Mr Major to announce plans for a series of measures to make government more open and accountable.

And here we come to one of the main villains of the piece - a man who is yet to be unmasked, let alone held to account He is Sir Robin Butler, the Cabinet Secretary. The spider at the heart of Whitehall's web of unaccountable power, Sir Robin is the most energetic and unapologetic defender of the corrupting concentration of power that the Scott inquiry has uncovered.It was Sir Robin who stated, during his evidence to the inquiry, that ministers had a right to withhold information from Parliament. It was Sir Robin who orchestrated the Government's response to the report which was such a calculated insult to the public. It was Sir Robin who invented the idea that ministers are accountable but not responsible for the actions of civil servants, a device which is a licence for unfettered Whitehall power.

For it means that while ministers might answer to Parliament for policies, they are not responsible for how they are enacted and so should not take any blame. The civil servants who enact the policies are accountable to no one other than the ministers. There is a deep dark hole at the heart of our system of government and Sir Robin lives in it - accountable, it seems, only to himself.It is to break up the culture of secrecy embodied by Sir Robin that reforms are needed The agenda that Mr Major should pursue is already clear. A statutory code of coduct for civil servants should enshrine their duty to blow the whistle on ministers who they believe are misleading Parliament. An ombudsman should be created to allow civil servants to raise their concerns. Ministers should be put under a duty to tell Parliament of all important shifts in policy, including those covering arms sales. The use of public interest immunity certificates should be severely restricted and the decision about whether they should be used should be taken out of the hands of politicians.The Attorney-General should become a non-political appointment and the Government's chief legal adviser should not sit in the Cabinet.