HEADS ROLL AT THE BBC WHILE BLAIR IS WHITEWASHED

Yesterday BBC Chairman Gavyn Davies resigned following publication of the Hutton report. Then today the Director General, Greg Dyke, resigned. Gavin Hewitt, a BBC reporter, spoke of"one of the most turbulent days in the BBC's history" and that wasn't an overstatement. Ominously the BBC reports that"The departure of both the BBC chairman and director general comes amid growing calls for the BBC to come under outside regulation. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said the Hutton report would be taken into account in the 2006 review of the BBC's charter." Currently, the BBC enjoys a certain degree of independence from the government although, of course, since it is largely funded by a mandatory TV license fee, a tax by any other name, it is, of course, very much dependent on the state for its existence. In practice this means that the BBC investigates and reports on government wrong-doing and frequently hosts interviews and debates critical of the current administration on one topic or another. The prevailing ethos is center-left but that doesn't prevent BBC commentators and guests making thoughtful criticisms of the government from time to time. Tom Palmer's accusation that"The BBC Does Its Best to Destroy Universal Values" is very wide of the mark. I fear that, in response to the Hutton report, even the BBC's mild criticisms of government policies will be tempered for fear of recriminations. That is why real liberals want to see a truly independent BBC financed voluntarily through market mechanisms and by the donations of viewers and listeners.

There is wide agreement that the Hutton report whitewashed Blair and his cronies. At The Independent Andrew Grice reports the words of Austin Mitchell, the Labour MP for Great Grimsby, who says:"It is a whitewash, basically. The danger is that it is so one-sided a report that it is going to lose credibility. People just aren't going to believe it." And over at the Daily Telegraph Boris Johnson, the Conservative MP for Henley and editor of The Spectator, writes:

"Blair, Hoon, Scarlett, the whole lot of them, have been sprayed with more whitewash than a Costa Brava timeshare. Hutton has succumbed to blindness of Nelsonian proportions. As snow-jobs go, this beats the Himalayas.

"With unerring inaccuracy, he has trained his guns at exactly the wrong target. He has blasted the BBC when, as I will repeat to my dying day, it was Blair, Campbell and Hoon who were the guilty men.

"How, you may be asking, do I dare to dissent from the opinions of the judge? I dissent because I have read the evidence presented to Hutton, and I put it to you that the judge is noble, learned and talking through the back of his neck."