In July 2003, I wrote an article for the New Statesman, The difference a day made, pointing out a big hole in the government’s defence to the claim that its spin doctors had put the notorious 45 minutes claim in the dossier. It had emerged that top spin doctor Alastair Campbell had chaired a meeting on the dossier on 9 September 2002, the day before Joint Intelligence Committee chairman John Scarlett had produced what was claimed to be both the first draft of the dossier and the first draft to include the claim. In observing that this wrecked Campbell’s alibi, I was only half right: the spin doctors did put the claim in the dossier that day, but different spin doctors at a different meeting.

It is now clear that the meeting at which the spin doctors suggested the inclusion of the claim was that of the dossier drafting group, on the afternoon of 9 September, where Campbell’s meeting took place that morning. The drafting meeting was attended by up to four spin doctors named in a June 2003 letter from Scarlett to Tony Blair as having been "involved" in drafting the dossier. They included including Foreign Office press secretary John Williams, who then produced his own draft of the dossier, which now appears to have been both the first draft of the dossier and the first draft to include the claim.

In my original article, I reported the Foreign Affairs Committee’s description of how a formal JIC paper that cited the claim was "discussed at a meeting on 9 September 2002". It now appears that this was the drafting meeting as the JIC paper was issued at exactly the time that that meeting started – 2pm that afternoon. It was "immediately after" the spin doctors saw the claim that it went in the dossier, probably in Williams’ draft.

During the Hutton Inquiry, I watched as many clues to the involvement of Williams and others in the actual drafting of the dossier emerged. When it emerged that Williams had written his own draft dossier the day before the one on which the government had based its whole case, it seemed obvious that this document must be significant, but no-one at the inquiry or in the media seemed to notice. Everyone seemed to fall for Campbell’s spin that these people were outside the loop. Even the (very late) disclosure of Scarlett’s letter to Blair, which left no doubt that Williams et al were on the inside of the process made no difference.

It is quite possible that within the next few weeks the government will be forced to release the Williams draft, because the Information Commissioner’s imminent decision will leave no doubt about its significance. The Information Tribunal has recently ordered the BBC to release the minutes of the post-Hutton governors meeting, overturning in the process the Commissioner’s very conservative approach to the same (Section 36) exemption that Jack Straw used in my case. An appeal in that direction would probably be seen for what it is, an attempt to delay further and an implicit admission of guilt. It may be that those who hope to be in government after Blair will realise how stupid it would be to move the inevitable "hit" nearer the election.

But in more realistic moments, I worry that for the most part the political and media establishment still doesn’t get it, doesn’t realise that the Williams draft could be the smoking gun or that confirmation that the spin doctors were actually drafting the dossier proves that it was sexed-up after all and that there has been a huge cover-up.