Brown defends Government handling of Iraq kidnapping

Gordon Brown has insisted that the Government had "left no stone unturned" in trying to secure the release of British hostages in Iraq, amid criticism of its handling of the saga.

The bodies of two of the five captives, Jason Creswell, from Glasgow, and Jason Swindlehurst, from Lancashire, were handed over to authorities in Baghdad late on Friday.

But the father of one of those still missing hit out at the way the Foreign Office had dealt with the issue.

Graeme Moore told 'GMTV': “They haven’t done anything. They should have been straight in directing negotiations right from the beginning.”

Brown defended the handling of the kidnapping, telling reporters: “I can assure you that we have left no stone unturned in our efforts to release the hostages, to work with the Iraqi authorities to maintain our vigilance about what needs to be done, and to look at all possible means by which we could free them.”