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item0061E 918, 919
918 29
January 2004
The BBC Problem
Yesterday, I said we
still had a problem, with the BBC. I welcome the resignation of Greg
Dyke - but has he gone for the right reasons? For the
real problem has not even been the subject of debate, let alone any
finding by Hutton. The problem is that, some three years ago, the
Corporation embarked upon a new editorial "news strategy". The BBC decided to
mix it with the tabloids, to go for "scoops", to seek "exclusives".
Listening to Radio Four every morning as I do, I remember when it all
happened. I remember wincing at the new language - "This
Programme can reveal..." - "Evidence
available to this Programme clearly indicates..." - "Documents
in the possession of this Programme prove..."
This was a
misconceived editorial strategy. The credibility of the BBC as
the world's preeminent news broadcaster was jeopardised by that reckless
editorial decision - and we must be grateful that the disease never
infected the BBC World Service. I have always believed that
this change was inspired by Greg Dyke. Andrew Gilligan was a freelance journalist
retained by the BBC simply "to get scoops" - that was his stock-in-trade,
as a free-lancer.
And his sloppiness and over-enthusiasm lie at the core of this tragic
saga.
But the root cause
was the careless populism
of Greg Dyke. He dragged the BBC down into the tabloid arena, hazarding
its great reputation as an objective commentator of record. That, in
my book, was why he had to go. I can only hope that his successors
realise what the real problem was...
Do you agree? Drop me a line
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919
2
February 2004
Dissatisfied
with Hutton
 The Hutton Report will
not go away. There is widespread discontent with his findings,
indeed some of the criticism has been very harsh.
I am also
dissatisfied. But it seems that I am at odds with
prevailing opinion.
For my dissatisfaction is quite different. I do
not believe that the BBC has been unfairly treated. I do not believe
that media freedoms are under threat. I do consider that Hutton
"cleared" Downing Street far too easily of exercising undue influence over
intelligence sources. Finally, and for me critical, I do not
consider that Hutton has properly explained Dr Kelly's death, which is
what he was asked to do.
I am dissatisfied.
I do not believe that the BBC has been
unfairly treated.
I do not believe that
media freedoms are under threat.
Critics
of Hutton have simply missed the point, and are defending against an
attack which has not been launched. The high-priests of the Meeja
(particularly The Guardian and The Independent) have been mounting
their high-horses this weekend, protesting at the threat to Press freedom, editorial
independence - when that is simply
not the issue. Several
leading commentators have done themselves damage by their unbalanced and
intemperate reactions.
For the true charge
against the BBC has always been its growing sensationalism, which I myself
have highlighted on several occasions, and greatly resented. It seems I may have been
wrong to have attributed it to Greg Dyke, even though he presided over it: it is now suggested that this
hectoring "scoop" journalism was restricted to the Today programme
- and more specifically to
the reign of Rod Liddle as Today Editor: see Feb 2
The Guardian.
Rod Liddle, it is said, riled by the refusal of Government Ministers
to appear on the Today Programme, decided that "Today
would uncover stories of its own, to which Ministers would be forced to
respond". This sounds to me like the beginning of this descent
in tabloid journalism which has been, I contend, the undoing of the BBC,
and which led directly to Gilligan's drive to make a story
out of the David Kelly interview. In short, the problem did not lie in the incident itself,
but in the editorial culture which had developed over the previous three
years - it now seems, under Rod Liddle's editorship. That is the true
charge, against the BBC. And it is, as yet, unanswered.
I
do consider that Hutton "cleared" Downing Street far too easily of
exercising undue influence over intelligence sources.
This is the point in the
inquiry at which Lord Hutton allowed his Northern Ireland conservatism to
get the better of him. Steeped in "government by
Intelligence" in Northern Ireland, he could not bring himself to find
improper collusion between the Downing Street cabal and Intelligence Chief
Sir John Scarlett, preferring to assert the underlying "independent
judgment" of Sir John and the intelligence community. One can tell
that Hutton himself was uncomfortable with this conclusion, for he
devised the strange theory of "subconscious influence" to recognise that the
language of the published dossier may have been inappropriately
strengthened, for publication.
For my part,
I have no doubt
whatever that,
in the war-mongering siege atmosphere of Downing Street at that time,
improper influence was brought to bear by the bullying Alistair Campbell, at the
instigation of Tony Blair, on John Scarlett: the testing of that 45-minute
claim was cavalier, and the language in which was expressed was stretched
to its sticking-point. And that was of course the only subject that
mattered to Blair, for the presentation of the "imminent threat" doctrine,
his casus belli, his justification for invasion. The rest of
the dossier could have been ignored, and was indeed ignored by the media. The 45-minute claim
was all that mattered.
I do not consider that Hutton has properly explained Dr Kelly's
death. Yet it was
that which he was appointed to do. This is, for me, the most serious
criticism of the Hutton Report. Acting in loco Coroner,
Lord Hutton duly finds that David Kelly committed suicide - yet throws no
light on
why he did so. The
implication is that he did so, seized with anguish at his un expected public outing, and
his public exposure. Yet that is wholly unconvincing, and completely
unsupported by the evidence: indeed, when he was first warned that his name
"would probably come out", after he had himself volunteered his
account of his unauthorised interview with Andrew Gilligan - he made no no
protest, no response. My reading of his character was that he
positively enjoyed his contacts with the Press, most of which were
authorised, if "off the record". David Kelly was the 59-year-old backroom boffin who positively
enjoyed this external recognition of his importance. He did not go
reluctantly to that interview with Andrew Gilligan.
 My
nose tells me that there is a very full story to tell, about the death of
David Kelly, but that Hutton did not even scratch the surface. It was
certainly "The Dossier", and Kelly's belief that Downing Street was
embellishing it, that
triggered
the entire tragedy - but that does not
explain
his suicide. The full story of Kelly's death is likely to be an
anguished patchwork of Civil Service discipline and indiscipline, a real
drive to seek public recognition for a dedicated scientific life "behind the
scenes", real worries about his pension and his relatively "low" £65,000 pa
salary, the Ba'hai faith and his recent conversion to it, concerns about his
own failure to live up to the stern preoccupation with "the truth" which is
a unifying Ba'hai theme, and a growing distance between
this lonely, thoughful "maverick" religious convert and the mainstream Anglicanism of
his immediate family. But this is all guesswork on my part:
Hutton illuminates
nothing.
- David
Kelly, at the end, was lonely and alone.
He could not live with
himself.
What do you think? Drop me a
line
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