Well Sunday arrives and now it seems that the blame is being placed on the BBC. The only big defence of the BBC I’ve seen was a vehement one from Rod Liddle, ex-Today editor until fairly recently.
All this nonsense about sources is pathetic and not worthy of a reply, but it worries me when I hear Gerald Kaufman (who chairs the Select Committee for Culture, Media & Sport) suggests that the BBC’s future is at stake, I’m outraged. How dare he! Gilligan is still saying that he reported what he heard accurately, and I don’t actually doubt that. There were other sources for Gilligan, and he probably included their views in his report. He shouldn’t have to tell us his sources.
And we’re hearing very little about how it is that David Kelly’s name was let into the open. Just saying that it was inevitable is simply not on. Governments can keep secrets if they want to, and they put his name out – or at the very least gave enough clues that anyone could work out the name, which they were then happy to verify. I look forward to hearing the outcome of that.
The whole thing sickens me. And I lay the blame at the door of number 10. Maybe not Blair himself, but certainly Campbell. Everyday, someone reports something somewhere which others disagree with, but this report was not that important – it was a trivial detail.
We still need full and proper reasons for our going to war. I think my thoughts to some extent are reflected in a piece from yesterday’s Guardian by Malcolm Rifkind of all people.
I think this excerpt in particular sums it up for me:
The issue is not whether the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein. Of course it is. It would also be a better place without Robert Mugabe, Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro and a host of other tyrants and despots, but there is no intention of the British government to support wars in order to get rid of them.