Question: In Iraq the daily death toll is growing. Should we now be looking at a strategy to pull our troops out?

Glenda Jackson: No, I think what we should be looking for is some way of both the United Kingdom and the United States eating diplomatic humble pie and working assiduously to attempt to get an international force into Iraq.

As importantly I think also setting the United Nations in the political driving seat. I think if those two changes could be brought about then we may begin to see Iraq begin to stabilise.

It would obviously take a considerable period of time for there to be the structures in place to enable the Iraqi people to engage in direct elections. But the situation is, in my opinion, deteriorating and I can only see the UN and a genuinely international force with the UN in the political driving seat as a positive way forward.

Question: Would it be acceptable to the international community for that force to be US-led?

Glenda Jackson: It might be acceptable to the international community but it clearly would not be acceptable to the Iraqi people and certainly to those elements within Iraq who are exploiting the occupation forces to fan what would seem to be an increasing physical expression of disquiet and dissatisfaction.

Question: Do you think that we are now seeing what John Major alluded to before the war, in the sense that we quite convincingly won the conflict but could go on to lose the peace?

Glenda Jackson: John Major wasn't alone in raising that, it was something that I personally had raised in - I think it was in the debate in September. Everyone knew who was going to win the war, but was there that commitment to win the peace? Which if we looked at the example which the government had been attempting to equate with Saddam Hussein, namely the second world war.

If we saw the time, the money, the personnel, the material that had to be engaged in both Japan and Germany post that conflict, there was clearly no such commitment so far as post-conflict Iraq was concerned. Clearly the - not only the forces, but the kind of assistance that is available to the Iraqi people is completely inadequate.

Question: Do you think if Labour MPs knew then what they know now and had the benefit of hindsight, so many would have voted with the government for the war?

Glenda Jackson: That's an extremely difficult question to answer. I've no doubt there were many of my colleagues who did genuinely examine what they'd heard, examined their own consciences, were cogniscent their own constituents' concerns on the issue of going to war.

But then I also think there are a sizeable number who would have voted with what the government wanted to do whatever.

Question: Do you think the government's done enough to restore confidence in the United Nations?

Glenda Jackson: No, and I think it's an extremely difficult situation for the government, which they have inflicted upon themselves by being seen so early and so completely to be in support of what the United States wanted to do.

And I think this is why I say, there must be this assiduous eating of diplomatic humble pie. I mean, to simply take one incident out where the British government was perfectly prepared to, in my opinion, traduce France on the issue of what the prime minister had claimed he was confident of obtaining, namely a second UN resolution authorising war.

He had already put on the public record that if a member of the five permanent members of the Security Council had exercised a veto if a second resolution had got that far, which as we know it didn't, he would still have gone to war.

So the attempt, that blatant attempt in a way. these are the things that are going to require assiduous restoration.

Question: Michael Heseltine is the latest person to suggest the row with the BBC was a smokescreen to mask the failure to uncover WMD. Once that smokescreen evaporates, could things actually get worse for the government on the issue of WMD?

Glenda Jackson: Where are they? They were already moving from talking about weapons to programmes, we had the foreign secretary in one of the later statements on Iraq before the House went into recess, attempting to convince again the possibility of Iraq being able to create a nuclear weapon, referring to documents and various bits of metal that had been found under a rosebush in an Iraqi scientist's garden. The fact that they had been discovered 12 years ago was something that he lied over.

This is a central point in everything the government has consistently said to us on the issue of Iraq's dangers.

Question: Appearing before the Hutton inquiry the prime minister mounted a stout defence of his actions and took responsibility for the events that occurred. This is surely welcome?

Glenda Jackson: Well, he eventually took responsibility. Certainly on the issue of outing Dr Kelly, when the news of Dr Kelly's death was broken to him when he was on tour in the Far East he - and I'm paraphrasing - but I think the central word was he denied having any responsibility for the "leakage".

Now it may well be that that was a lawyer's precise choice of words and that he was using leakage as opposed to outing but nonetheless he's accepted responsibility somewhat late in the day.

Question: In a sense, though, his mea culpa seemed to contrast with the highly defensive nature of Geoff Hoon's testimony?

Glenda Jackson: Well, I mean one does wonder, given what Geoff Hoon had said, precisely why we need a secretary of state for the MoD. It seems perfectly capable on his testimony of running without any kind of government minister at all.

I have always been of the opinion, and my opinion has not changed, that secretaries of state are responsible for whatever emanates from their department and in my opinion Geoff Hoon is responsible for what happened within the MoD, the prime minister is responsible for what happened in Number 10 Downing Street.

And that not only includes, as we now know, his insistence that the name be put in the public domain, but also the attempt by one of his spokespersons to traduce Dr Kelly's reputation by dubbing him a Walter Mitty fantasist two days before he was going to be buried.

Question: To what extent is it fair to say that the public wants and now expects a high level resignation over this?

Glenda Jackson: Well, we'll have to wait and see what Lord Hutton says and without in any way wishing to reduce the commitment, perspicacity and genuine inquiry of Lord Hutton's endeavours, usually such inquiries attempt to balance blame, don't they?

I have been reading reports attempting to say that the prime minister is "leading with his chin", as one can put it, by saying he would have resigned on the issue if he had lied in the creation of the dossier. One of the papers said it's a warning to Lord Hutton not to blame him unless he has to.

On the issue of Dr Kelly's death, I'm very clear who should resign and my reasons for calling for those resignations are equally clear.

But on the issue of the weapons of mass destruction, this is not an issue that is going to go away and even before the Hutton inquiry, even before Dr Kelly's tragic death, I can recall one of my colleagues saying that if the weapons had not been found by the end of September, the prime minister should be considering his position.

Question: The issue of trust is now the central issue in political terms. Do you think it possible or feasible that the prime minister can win back the trust of the people?

Glenda Jackson: Well, I understand the most recent opinion polls have shown trust in the prime minister individually has plummeted from 64 per cent to I think 32 to 33. I think it is going to be extremely difficult for that trust to be rebuilt as far as the public is concerned.

I was hearing some vox pops on the radio this morning from around the country post-the prime minister's appearance - now obviously those people, as have I, have not seen the prime minister in court but the prevailing opinion that emanated from those vox pops was a deep, deep mistrust and what is concerning to me is that, is this going to disaffect people so much that they're not going to turn out and vote at the next election?

Question: Would you therefore characterise trust as something akin to virginity - once it's gone, it's gone for good?

Glenda Jackson: I think it's extremely difficult to get it back, in this particularly context, because of the enormity of the actions that have taken place, most markedly, of course, the war itself and the deep disquiet there was in the country even before it began, during and of course most markedly, after. And the news that is coming out of Iraq day on day is going to do nothing to temper that disquiet.

Question: Even on the domestic agenda, the prime minister appears in trouble - take top-up fees, foundation hospitals. What is your message to ministers about the mode they should put themselves in as they come back to face a difficult few months?

Glenda Jackson: Well, as I said I believe that resignations should have occurred. I think it would be a mistake on the part of government to think that they can bully or threaten or attempt to use a big stick over members of parliament.

I don't know what my colleagues have been experiencing in their constituencies, but I know what I've been experiencing in mine over these issues and there has been no move as far as I can see, as I said earlier, to believe in the reasons the government gave us for going to war and the whole of the Dr Kelly tragedy has done nothing other than to increase that sense of mistrust, distrust.

Also something which seems to have evaded the government's considerations in this matter, the British people are not stupid, and they dislike being treated as though they are, that there is something about government itself, which automatically means we have to believe what we hear.

Question: Finally, it still looks likely the prime minister will be in his position at the next election. Given all that you have said, how can you feasibly go to the people of Hampstead and Highgate and ask them to support you knowing that you will in turn help return him to Downing Street?

Glenda Jackson: Well, we have to wait and see, won't we? But as I have made abundantly clear, I do not equate the party with the government, nor this government with the party. We still have a party in which that contribution is a major part of a manifesto but we'll have to wait and see.