BRITAIN: Public confidence in the BBC may have crashed in the bitter aftermath of the Hutton report. Yet a flurry of polls suggest that many more Britons still trust the troubled Corporation's news journalists than trust members of their government, writes Frank Millar
This should be both sobering for, and instructive to, Prime Minister Tony Blair at the end of a week marking the culmination of an unprecedented battle between his government and one of the most valued institutions of the British state which has left both badly damaged.
It must all have seemed so different just three days ago. No matter that they had brought him close to defeat and a potentially fatal blow to his authority in the Commons on Tuesday in the vote over university fees. On Wednesday Labour MPs cheered Mr Blair and jeered Tory leader Michael Howard as he folded his tent in face of Lord Hutton's comprehensive findings for the government and against the BBC.
Having placed such emphasis on the so-called "naming strategy" - and, crucially, having entered no prior doubt about Lord Hutton's suitability to conduct this inquiry - Mr Howard was quite literally sunk by the former Law Lord's conclusion that "there was no dishonourable, underhand or duplicitous strategy by the government covertly to leak Dr Kelly's name" as the suspected source for the BBC's allegations.
As for those allegations - that Downing Street had "sexed up" the Iraqi weapons dossier, inserting doubtful intelligence knowing it was probably wrong - Lord Hutton delivered his damning indictment of reporter Andrew Gilligan and his BBC bosses with a single word: "Unfounded." When Mr Blair made a speech on public service reform on Thursday, he mentioned the décor in the hotel venue, wondering what effect the patterned carpet might have if one had a hangover.
Some wondered if he was speaking from experience. For if the champagne wasn't exactly flowing, a few quiet glasses were certainly raised on Wednesday night at the end of a torrid 24 hours in the life of this premiership. And by Thursday evening - having claimed the scalps of the BBC's director-general Greg Dyke and chairman Gavin Davies, together with the long-demanded apology - the prime minister and his aides declared themselves ready to "draw a line" under the whole affair and move on.
But there was to be no early "closure". The rollercoaster was still charging furiously, riding a growing swell of public resentment and disbelief that Lord Hutton could so comprehensively condemn the BBC while finding that no one in government had done anything at all wrong.
"Whitewash" screamed the front page of the London Independent on Thursday.
"Whitewash", in turn, concluded 56 per cent of those questioned for yesterday's YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph.
Nor, interestingly, was there convergence between the general public reaction and what might be termed the "special interest" complaints of journalists fearful about the impact of Lord Hutton's findings for the renewal of the BBC charter or press freedom in general, or the anti-war lobby which had been relying on Lord Hutton to make its case against the war in Iraq.
To the contrary, the now-departed Mr Gilligan topped the poll in that section inviting respondents to say which of the key players they thought had behaved on the whole properly or improperly during the events leading to Dr Kelly's death. Seventy-two per cent found against Mr Gilligan, with the BBC governors and management second-placed with 62 per cent. However, 60 per cent also said they thought Alastair Campbell (Mr Blair's former communications director) had behaved improperly, while 59 per cent said the same of Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon and 52 per cent in respect of Mr Blair himself.
And fully 56 per cent of those questioned believed Lord Hutton - as a member of the Establishment - had been too ready to sympathise with the government and in the end produced something like a whitewash, while only 34 per cent thought his report represented a thorough and impartial attempt to discover the truth about Dr Kelly's death.
In other words - despite the outrage demonstrated by BBC staff - there appears to be a ready public acceptance of Lord Hutton's conclusion that Mr Gilligan got it badly wrong; that the Beeb's editorial systems were "defective" in allowing the unscripted broadcast of such serious (and false) allegations in the first place; and that BBC managers and governors failed twice over - to deal properly with the government's complaints, and to investigate Gilligan's story (both versions of his notes and all) before defending it to the hilt.
However, that acceptance is balanced by obvious disbelief that no suspicion should attach to Mr Campbell or the Ministry of Defence press office over the naming of Dr Kelly; that the failure to tell the esteemed government scientist he had been named as the suspected BBC mole should attract only the mildest rebuke; and that there should be no allowance that a failure by the MoD in its "duty of care" to Dr Kelly might have played some part in the demoralisation and despair which finally drove him to suicide.
This public mood was captured yesterday by Sir Bernard Ingham, Margaret Thatcher's former press secretary, who said the BBC had been treated "horribly" by a judge showing "no regard for Number 10's track record" in the seven years since New Labour came to power.
Like other notables who have criticised Lord Hutton - such as Lord Attenborough and Lord Rees-Mogg - motives and angles, or just previously close associations with the BBC, should not be discounted.
That said, Sir Bernard put his finger on Mr Blair's continuing problem: his Number 10 machine has "form" and its reputation for media manipulation has cost the prime minister in terms of "trust".
Regular readers of these pages will not have been surprised to find Mr Blair cleared on all three main counts. And there might seem something of a problem for people supporting the generality of Lord Hutton's conclusions while challenging him on the particular issue of the part played by persons other than the prime minister in the Dr Kelly naming strategy. "I'm interested in getting at the truth, not finding a stick with which to beat the government," said one Conservative who privately confided his view that Michael Howard's strategy would prove a profound misjudgment.
The fact that the "dogs in the street" had a different view, informed by Mr Campbell's diary entries - "the important thing was the name out there . . . this would F*** Gilligan" - cut no ice with him, nor of course, with Lord Hutton. Many more may feel likewise, that you don't invite a distinguished Law Lord to conduct such an inquiry and then brand him one of "Tony's Cronies" because he delivers the verdict you don't want.
Another source last night suggested that Mr Howard might have been better advised to think his way into Mr Blair's position and consider that he might want one day to call on a judge to get him out of a hole.
Which prompts these questions. Was Lord Hutton the right man for this inquiry? And was this the proper form of inquiry?
Eminent and distinguished as he unquestionably is, he was at the end of the day just one among many Law Lords. Nor was he - despite Mr Blair's insistence on so describing him - actually "the judge" in this matter. Mr Blair took an admitted risk in asking Lord Hutton to conduct his inquiry after Dr Kelly's suicide. But these were not proceedings conducted in a court of law. Even had they been, judges have been known to get things wrong and even convicted criminals have a right of appeal.
As one legal observer put it: "For Hutton, either the BBC charge against the government was true or it wasn't. He couldn't leave any taint of suspicion on his judgment. He will have approached this as a lawyer, with all the strengths and weaknesses of a lawyer."
Critics may now think one of thoseweaknesses may have been a lack of knowledge of politics and how the modern Whitehall system works. But too late now to reflect that this - coupled with a conservative instinct, a willingness perhaps to trust too much the integrity of the security services and a presumed indisposition to journalists - made him the wrong choice. The obvious question at the time, surely, was whether Mr Blair would have invited any judge to hold such an inquiry if unsure of his ground or fearful his Learned Friend might find against him? In any event, Lord Hutton has cleared him - yet Mr Blair is not in the clear and events move on.
Washington's admission that Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction may never be found will fuel demands for another inquiry - not into whether Mr Blair believed the intelligence, but why it has seemingly proved so wrong. For Mr Blair, the war goes on.