Update and Package manager unresponsive

[Stephen Fahey <stephen.fahey@ntlworld.com>]

I've been a debian etch user for less than a week, all was going very 
well until after installing Firestarter firewall, which went well, I got 
the updates available window and went ahead with updates resulting in an 
error message, which I didn't write down.

I now cannot open Update manager or start Synaptic package Manager.
I think the issue is I'm not being asked for Administrator password, 
access to  Root Terminal does not get a response.  Running  :~$ apt-get 
check in Terminal returns

E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13 Permission denied)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you 
root?

I've tried rebooting to no effect.

Any suggestions

Steve