The battle continues

Readers of London Letter should already be aware of the ongoing row between Downing Street and the BBC which was triggered by the latter's allegation that the Government had "sexed up" a dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities.

As BBC Radio 4 reporter Andrew Gilligan's despatch claimed, apparently with the backing of his editors at the Today programme and managers at BBC News, information supplied by an intelligence source -- unnamed at the time -- showed that in February Mr Blair had presented a "dodgy dossier" to the Parliament as "further intelligence" on the threat posed by Iraq. This dossier claimed that the Iraqi President possessed significant quantities of WMD -- weapons of mass destruction -- which were capable of hitting US and British targets within 45 minutes of the issue of launch order. The Government, of course, strongly insisted that all the information in the dossier was based on hard facts assimilated by reliable intelligence sources. Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's Director of Communications, was in charge of producing the dossier and although it was mainly against him that the BBC's allegations were directed, they also raised questions, albeit indirectly, about the roles of a number of other high-profile members of the Government including the Prime Minister. The Government categorically denied everything and demanded that the BBC must withdraw its allegations and broadcast an apology. In turn, the BBC not only refused to capitulate, its governors came out with a pugilistic statement demanding that Downing Street retract its claim of bias against the Corporation's journalism. The stand-off between the Government and the BBC became even more volatile when the Cultural Secretary Tessa Jowell hinted that the row could jeopardise the renewal of the BBC's Royal Charter.

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For the benefit of those who may not be quite familiar with the significance of the Royal Charter, it is the agreement which allows the BBC to broadcast independently without interference from the Government and to raise money through a licence fee, currently £116 annually, charged for every TV set used in the country, yielding £2.9 billion a year. The BBC was originally called the British Broadcasting Company when it was formed on 18th October 1922, by Lord Reith who visualised an independent broadcaster to "educate, inform and entertain" the nation free from any political interference and commercial pressure. In 1926 when Winston Churchill was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, there was a General Strike in England. During this time, the broadcaster's cautious style of reporting prompted Churchill to call for a Government take-over, but he was overruled by the then Prime Minster Stanley Baldwin. The following year, King George V signed the first Royal Charter renaming the company the British Broadcasting Corporation and granting it the rights it currently enjoys.

This Charter also defines the Corporation's public service remit, to produce educational shows dealing with current affairs and the arts, as well as entertainment, and states that it is the duty of the programme makers to treat "controversial subjects with due accuracy and impartiality." In the current row between Downing Street and the BBC, the Government has been trying to use this very directive to force the Corporation to retract its allegations, claiming that it has not dealt with issues concerning the Iraq war dossier with "due accuracy and impartiality". The BBC, of course, insists that it has never deviated from any directive contained in the Charter.

The current tenure of the BBC's Royal Charter is for ten years which is due to expire on 31st December 2006. Negotiations on renewing it are expected to open later this year. But the Cultural Secretary's veiled threat -- which she could hardly have made without tacit permission from Downing Street -- is being interpreted in some quarters as part of the Government's bullying tactics to cut the BBC down to size. Without the Charter, the BBC could lose its proud heritage of independence, and the governors who currently oversee whether the Corporation is fulfilling its public service role could be replaced by the newly-created broadcasting watchdog OFCOM. In fact, back in 2001, Mr Blair wanted to make similar changes but thought better of it when the entire BBC Board threatened to resign only months before the general election. This time, however, no one is very sure yet what the Government will finally do. The Cultural Secretary insisted that the BBC has a "constitutional responsibility for the accuracy and impartiality of its news coverage. The BBC is not in a position simply to make allegations unless it is absolutely clear those allegations are true." The Prime Minister too insisted that the BBC must retract its allegations completely because they were "absurd".

Reacting to questions whether Alastair Campbell had indeed been responsible for inserting false data in the dossier and the suggestion that the Prime Minster might have been aware of it, Mr Blair told the Sunday broadsheet The Observer: "There couldn't be a more serious charge, that I ordered our troops into conflict on the basis of intelligence evidence that I falsified. You could not make a more serious charge against a Prime Minister." On the other hand, the BBC's Board of Governors are also equally adamant in their stance that the Corporation has done nothing in breach of the underlying principles of the Royal Charter as Andrew Gilligan's story was broadcast "in the public interest". A statement issued on behalf of the BBC governors said: "The Board reiterates that the BBC's overall coverage of the (Iraq) war, and the political issues surrounding it, has been entirely impartial, and it emphatically rejects Mr Campbell's claim that large parts of the BBC had an agenda against war..... The Board is satisfied that it was in the public interest to broadcast Mr Gilligan's story, given the information which was available to BBC News at the time."

Did he fall, or was he pushed?

Andrew Gilligan's intelligence source did not remain "unnamed" for long and turned out to be Dr David Kelly, a well-respected, soft-spoken 59-year-old Ministry of Defence weapons expert who had played a key role in assisting the UN Weapons Inspection Team in Iraq. Dr Kelly apparently volunteered to give evidence before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee where he was "mercilessly grilled", according to the media, and accused of breaching the official code of secrecy. The pressure he was subjected to was evidently too much for the man described by friends as "honest and decent" and, no doubt driven beyond breaking point, he ended his own life by taking an overdose of painkillers and slashing a vein in his wrist. Thus the row that had already reached the highly volatile stage where the BBC and Downing Street were both locked in a battle of accusations and counter-accusations culminated in real tragedy. Now that gives rise to the question: Who was responsible for leaking Dr Kelly's identity?

Neither the Government nor the BBC is inclined to accept the responsibility. The BBC bosses have since revealed that they have a tape recording of David Kelly expressing serious concern about how Downing Street made the case for war and believe the tape is the "smoking gun" that will exonerate Andrew Gilligan as well as the Corporation of any wrong-doing in the handling of the "sexed-up dossier" story. On the other hand, Prime Minster Tony Blair also denied that he had anything to do with the deliberate leaking of the MoD expert's name: "Emphatically not," he retorted angrily: "I did not authorise the leaking of the name of David Kelly." He also reportedly assured Alastair Campbell that he retained his full confidence and could stay at his post as long as he wanted, although right at the moment there are discreet whispers circulating in the upper reaches of Whitehall that Mr Campbell may not remain at his post after September at the latest.

At his monthly press conference, the Prime Minister will certainly have to answer questions about Mr Campbell's future, and he is under increasing pressure to use his Director of Communications' eventual departure as a means of proving that New Labour is not really obsessed with spin and not as intrinsically untrustworthy as ever-increasing numbers of people seem to believe. Mr Blair's own position too is extremely tenuous, to say the least, with the Chancellor Gordon Brown covertly eyeing the Prime Minister's chair. Meanwhile, the circumstances leading to Dr Kelly's suicide still remain shrouded in mystery -- the only thing that is clear is that he took his life 24 hours after being called to give evidence in private to the Intelligence and Security Committee in Westminster. Thus, for the time being, we are faced with the classic question: "Did he fall, or was he pushed?" The answer may be forthcoming in the next few days, but then, it may not, leaving us with the intriguing speculation: "Perhaps he was pushed first, and then he fell?"