The Hutton Report

[The Gaffer]

Originally posted by LutraMage
By the way, when I was young you didn't talk about a Free Press, you talked about a Free and Fair Press - signifying that balanced against the powerful freedom of the media to print what they wanted was the responsibility to do so in a fair and unbiased manner. Nowadays, whilst I often hear so-called journalists championing the Freedom of the Press, I never hear them mentioning a Free and Fair Press - what a surprise!

Interesting point; if it's true, I would argue that the politicians only have themselves to blame.

Governments now employ legions of (often publicly-funded) communications staff whose sole purpose is to manipulate the public perception of what the politicians are up to. T'was ever thus, you might say. But wouldn't you accept that in recent years, this dark art has reached ever greater heights of sophistication? Or would you regard Alastair Campbell as a civil servant whose prime motive was to tell the truth to the people of Britain, rather than to make the Prime Minister and the Government seem pure as the driven snow?

In this light, being fair means being manipulated; to be free, the media have to be hostile.

[LutraMage]

Originally posted by The Gaffer
Interesting point; if it's true, I would argue that the politicians only have themselves to blame.

Governments now employ legions of (often publicly-funded) communications staff whose sole purpose is to manipulate the public perception of what the politicians are up to. T'was ever thus, you might say. But wouldn't you accept that in recent years, this dark art has reached ever greater heights of sophistication? Or would you regard Alastair Campbell as a civil servant whose prime motive was to tell the truth to the people of Britain, rather than to make the Prime Minister and the Government seem pure as the driven snow?

In this light, being fair means being manipulated; to be free, the media have to be hostile.

Gaffer, you too raise an interesting point, and I have to agree with you that the new vogue in the UK for spin doctors (caught, I'm afraid to say, from across the pond) has seriously undermined the political process here. Neither politician nor civil servant, but often acting as if they are both, this group of individuals would not be missed if they all went the way of Jo Moore (she of "this would be a good day to bury bad news" fame).

However, that doesn't abrogate responsibility from good journalists to get their facts right and to put those facts together in an unbiased manner. It's one thing for us as individuals to quote selective facts to back up our own ideas (or should I say prejudices ) - we don't have the duty to inform and empower the people. When so-called journalists do nothing but fit selective facts together to fit with the story they were always going to write, you've lost a free and fair press, and editorial independence to boot!

[The Gaffer]

Point taken, and agreed with (up to a point).

The issue would be to what extent did Gilligan actually do this? He issued a pretty hasty clarification that he did not mean to say that Bliar actually lied on the WMD issue. Hutton himself stated that, if you took "sexed-up" to mean "changing the form of words" then the dossier may well have been sexed up. (The choice phrase was that Scarlett may have been "subconsciously influenced" by Campbell. What a hoot! Can you imagine Alistair Campbell subconsciously influencing anybody??)

Clearly, Gilligan was deeply suspicious of the Iraq dossier, and with good reason. Never before had intelligence information been used as a justification for war; never before had it even been published in this form. Usually, we have to wait 30 years before we even get to read the goddam MI6 canteen menu, for crying out loud. Admittedly, he made some mistakes along the way.

It's interesting that you mention Jo Moore. I seem to recall that her bosses (Stephen Byers and, ultimately, Tony Bliar) did not deem it worthy of their resignation that she made probably the most stupid comment a government official could make. Yet Greg Dyke and Gavin Davies were expected to take responsibility for Gilligan's error.

Mate, it stinks.

[sun-star]

Originally posted by The Gaffer
The issue would be to what extent did Gilligan actually do this? He issued a pretty hasty clarification that he did not mean to say that Bliar actually lied on the WMD issue. Hutton himself stated that, if you took "sexed-up" to mean "changing the form of words" then the dossier may well have been sexed up. (The choice phrase was that Scarlett may have been "subconsciously influenced" by Campbell. What a hoot! Can you imagine Alistair Campbell subconsciously influencing anybody??)

The thing that confuses me is, there's no doubt Alistair Campbell changed some words in the dossier. He said so in his evidence to the inquiry (I've been reading the transcripts online in the hope of avoiding all that media bias ) and went through a list of the comments he made - in some places questioning inconsistencies and in some places "strengthening" the language. I don't know if you'd call it sexing up, but he obviously did it and didn't mind admitting it. So where does the "subconscious" bit come in?

[LutraMage]

Originally posted by The Gaffer
Point taken, and agreed with (up to a point).
It's interesting that you mention Jo Moore. I seem to recall that her bosses (Stephen Byers and, ultimately, Tony Bliar) did not deem it worthy of their resignation that she made probably the most stupid comment a government official could make. Yet Greg Dyke and Gavin Davies were expected to take responsibility for Gilligan's error.

Mate, it stinks.

Lots of stuff worth commenting on here, but I'm going to concentrate on the last point. You are absolutely right about Byers. He and Moore should have resigned on Day 1. If you are going to employ spin doctors and give them quasi political powers, then, as a Secretary of State, you have to take responsibility for their actions, as they have no responsibility (other than to you, the Secretary of State) themselves. However, what do you expect from a liver lillied, toadying New Labourite? Of course he's was never going to do the honourable thing.

Concepts like 'honour' and 'decency' are not New Labour terms, my friend. They are not 'cool Britannia'. They go with 'tradition', 'Ministerial Responsibility', 'a stiff upper lip'. In short, they are concepts in need of 'modernisation' and 'refocussing' to bring them 'up-to-date' in Blair's New Britain.

And that's the rotten core at the heart of this Blair government. The reason that even the BBC is only the latest in a long line of traditional Labour supporting groups which has lost faith with this 'socialist' government is not that it's not really socialist (it never was), it's not even that it's not 'Social Democratic'. It's simply that it's not anything at all. Middle-of-the-road, lowest-common-denominator, all-things-to-all-men, stick-at-naught, principleless government by mediocre politicians whose only common thread (think Ken Livingston, Stephen Biars, Robin Cook, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair) is a desire to stay in power at any cost!

It really does make me mad that the British People voted them into Office (twice)! So now they (the Public) shouldn't bleat when a bungled attempt by the BBC to discredit New Labour has gone horribly wrong. Blair is 'Teflon Tony' precisely because there is nowhere for mud to stick. Marching with CND one day, waging WMD War with George the next. No principles, no way to discredit! Very sad, but true!

[The Gaffer]

Well, I don't completely agree with you there. They have greatly increased public services expenditure, introduced the minimum wage, begun to implement some of the Social Chapter provisions which Major opted out of, etc. etc.

(Mind you, I'm guessing that these aren't necessarily things you'd regard as positives )

The funny thing is that they seem to want to keep these things secret in case the public catches on to these vestigial socialist impulses. I would agree that Bliar has nothing to do with any of these, and it's mostly down to Gordon Brown (who I would back for Prime Minister: I think he is a principled politician)

However, staying on this "sleaze society" topic, I don't think the answer is to go back to a system of (even more) patronage and elitism. The "jolly good chaps" who presided over the Bloody Sunday inquiries (Hutton was barrister for the MoD at that one, by the way), Birmingham Six appeals, Guildford Four, etc etc, didn't exactly excel themselves. And this Butler bloke was the one who wrote a reference for Jonathan Aitken on the basis that Aitken told him "I didn't do it".

Trial by media accusation is very far from perfect, but at least it's a step forward from trial by jolly nice lunch in the Garrick.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Giligans biggest fault/lie, and the one that contributed to the suicide, was his falsely attributing some of his opinions and guesses as information supplied by his government scource. False attribution is a mortal sin in journalism.

[Janny]

Wow i remember the Hutton Report... that was like ages ago. Right before the Butler Report which was also a white-wash. Of course that was before we took out Syria... and France.
(*Brought to you by Janny's pre-emptive auto posts*)

[The Gaffer]