Now thats what I call spin.

[tom52]

You take the country to war on a spurious false pretence.
And the consequence is.......
The Chairman and Director General of the BBC resign for pointing out your misrepresentations.

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[SteveB_Sigma33]

The question is - who is going to stand up to point out any further discrepancies in the decisions the government makes!!!



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[Twister_Ken]

The biter bit?

I get the feeling that Greg Dyke might prove a more dogged and less hamstrung opponent outside the BBC than inside it.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>

 

[nicho]

Re: The biter bit?

Dyke said last night that he would be making a full statement within a couple of weeks - the BBC legal team evidently is at odds with his Lordship on "various points of law". Asked if he agreed with the "full" apology made by the BBC after his resignation he retorted "...full apology?? what full apology, I suggest you listen very carefully to its actuial wording!!".

On Question time last night, Margaret Beckett got a VERY rough ride from both Ian Hislop and the audience. A telephone poll during the programme received 23000 responses, 82% saying Dyke should NOT have gone - .

Blair wants to draw a line under this - there's no way that will happen. The Government has been very badly damaged by the Hutton report - the fact that it was so one sided may well turn out to be a blessing after all.

And erm, the WMD's, just where Can they be I wonder.......??

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[tcm]

Re: The biter bit?

yes, i agree, whatever ones politics, the govt gets a bad mark from all sides if his clever clever politicking has caused good people to go needlessly. Note that it's a very fine point that cause the initial arguments from AC.

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[[2574]]

I think Tony Blair may have lost the next election yesterday - a lot of thinking/floating voters have surely gone "somewhere else" now - me included. There's just too much spin to stomach, good people have died and have been kicked out of office because of political ambition. Boris Johnson is the guy to watch, a terrific interview on Westminster green on Wednesday - no bullshit, that's what we want.

Rob

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[ParaHandy]

Re: No shortage ...

.. of evidence of blairs shortcomings ...

week began with brown at his bash with w gates & co slipping into his opening speech that "the rate of spending growth in the next spending round will be lower than in this round", BoE (also on monday) noted 2003-4 borrowing limit just about reached by end Dec and then blair later that week struggling to get even a mild reform through .. if blair can't deliver, because the PLP malcontents/rebels don't either support or trust him, the radical reforms to NHS etc to ensure that all those billions are well spent then its money down the drain.

whatever anybodys political views, its not good news for the country when it unravels this fast imho

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[Miker]

you\'ve got to hand it to Tony

If you must have an inquiy, set narrow terms of reference and choose a conservative minded judge.
In the blinkered judgement, I think that Hutton was right in that Gilligan over-egged the cake and the BBC over-reacted to Alistair Campbell. But the real question of where are those WMDs will not go away.
It also seemed to me that the MOD did insufficient to protect Dr David Kelly and left him to hang out to dry with disastrous consquences. And as for Gilligan!!

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[Chris_Robb]

Re: The biter bit?

I notice he has attacked A Campbell this morning - re his evidence to the commons select committes about his suggested changes to the dossier compared to his evidence to the Hutton enq. Apparently a large gap - leading to a charge of misleading parliament.

As you say - Gregs blood is up and he won't let this one go.

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[FlyingSpud]

Agreed, many people I know take the same view, Blair has become a danger to democracy. (and I voted for him last time) /forums/images/icons/blush.gif

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[tome]

I was totally dismayed to hear Hutton deliver his verdict, it was almost as though he was looking at different evidence from the rest of us. Put me in a black mood for the rest of the day and I almost started smoking again.

With hindsight, I think the fact that it is so clearly a whitewash will come back to haunt Blair. The fat lady has yet to sing, and the fat lady is us.

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[sailorman]

Re: The biter bit?

which yank president said
" its better to keep him in the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in"

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[charles_reed]

Pyrrhic victory

Admiration at his gall or a sense of disgust at his continual attempted conmanship.

I think, in a purely legalistic sense, as with Clinton not having intercourse with Lewinsky, the Hutton report is correct.
But transferring the burden of proof to the journalists - almost as though it were evidence in a criminal trial?

No, I think Campbell has won his battle with the BBC and lost the campaign for his boss.

I never believed the WMD line, and wish they (Bush & Blair) had come out with the truth:-

We're tearing up 200 years of international protocol.
If we don't like your government we're going to change it to a nice democracy like ours.
Oh! meanwhile we'll keep those fat, lazy, stupid electorates of ours onside by telling them what they want to hear and what we want them to believe.

I suspect both will be getting their come-uppance at the hands of those very same electors - you can fool some of the people most of the time, but you can't fool them all, all the time.

Only trouble is the chap on the other side is probably equally unprincipled.


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[Sailfree]

What I can't understand is that prior to the report everyone spoke well of Hutton, considered him independant, free minded. At his age and a Lord I am not sure how a government could ever influence him.
Yet now he published his report those that don't agree with his conclusions call it a whitewash.
I think it's a waste of time and money as I believe it is in our nature to only believe items/reports that reinforce our previous held opinions.
As someone else said on this Forum when we believe we are thinking we are really only rearranging our prejudices.
Go on prove me wrong - who did change change their mind after an elderly independant Law Lord with nothing further to gain gave his consider opinion.

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[FlyingSpud]

What do you mean by ‘independent and free minded?.

As you say

‘I believe it is in our nature to only believe items/reports that reinforce our previous held opinions’

and that, of course, applies equally to Judges as the rest of us. They also report their own previously held opinions, and by definition, a Law Lord is of the establishment and for the establishment, that’s why the Government choose them for such reports

Oddly, one sensible comment came from Alistair Campbell on his TV interview, he said the British people’s common sense generally got things right. As I understand it, abut 17% think Hutton was balanced in all the polls, and this seems borne out here as well, the report was so clearly unbalanced that it is harming the Government much more than the BBC.


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[LadyInBed]

The cards were stacked by the way the inquiry was set up. Take evidence, no cross-examination, then pull the ‘bad guys’ back for a grilling and castigation.

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