The government is using the Hutton inquiry to divert attention from the real issues surrounding the Iraq war, Lord Heseltine has claimed.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, the former deputy prime minister insisted that Margaret Thatcher faced much greater scrutiny after the Falklands war than Tony Blair was facing now.

"The Hutton inquiry is serving this government in a far better way than people understand," he said.

"For several weeks we have had what in historic terms is really trivial exposure of who said what and who sent emails to whoever.

"The real issue is the historic issue. British troops are dying in Iraq because we were told there were weapons of mass destruction that could be imminently deployed."

Lord Heseltine, defence secretary between 1983 and 1986, said the failure to uncover evidence of the weapons was "the real scandal that underlies this government's performance and this is where a full inquiry should now be directed."

"In order to try and restore trust on the substantive issues, the British people are entitled to an exposure as to how this evidence was so misguided and flimsy that we sent British troops to risk their lives," he said.

"If a Tory government had behaved as this government - flouted the UN and gone to war in Iraq - the Labour Party to a man and woman would have brought bedlam to the House of Commons."

Shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram joined Heseltine's calls for an inquiry.

"I would like to see a wider inquiry into the whole thing," he said.

"That's what we have been pressing for from the start - a proper, full, judicial, independent inquiry where people can be questioned on oath."

Speaking on the same programme, former international development minister George Foulkes argued it was clear that the BBC's claim - that the government had "sexed up" the dossier of evidence against Saddam Hussein - was false.

Journalist Andrew Gilligan's original report was "sloppy, inaccurate and mischievous," he said.

"Over the last few weeks there has been a concerted attack on the government," claimed the Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley MP.

"I sometimes think that the BBC and the Conservative Party are in collusion on this."