Former Labour minister Ms Glenda Jackson says Mr Tony Blair should resign as Prime Minister over the death of Dr David Kelly.
She said the judicial inquiry into his death would paralyse the Government while Mr Blair remained.
"Bullets should be bitten," Ms Jackson said.
The former transport minister said Number 10's battle with the BBC was an "entirely spurious side show" set up to distract attention from the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Ms Jackson said she was shocked to hear Dr Kelly, who was at the centre of dispute, was apparently dead.
"We now have the judicial inquiry but I have to say it seems to me that the Prime Minister should really be reconsidering his position," she told radio station LBC 97.3.
"I don't see how the Government is going to be able to function adequately.
"This is going to be hanging over the Government for the whole period of the judicial inquiry."
Left-winger Ms Jackson served as a junior transport minister from 1997 to 1999.
The Oscar-winning former actress quit the Government in a bid to become Labour's candidate in the first election for London mayor.
PA