Sunday, September 19, 2004
I shook todays copy of The Independent on Sunday, the newspaper for the discerning concerned but powerless London liberal, and out popped a postcard for the 'Just Say Sorry Tony!' campaign, encouraging people to send postcards to the PM, asking him to apologise for being the lying scumbag that he is- oh all right, asking for a major admission of fault and a recognition that Britain can never go down the same route again. You can sign up on the website if you don't have a postcard.
I watched Greg Dyke's rant against New Labour and Alistair Campbell in particular on Channel 4, Betrayed by New Labour. It was incredibly self-serving, of course, starting with how he got the job of DG at the Beeb. Dyke almost goes as far as to say "I would have been a great New Labour stooge, if it wasn't for that meddlesome Campbell!" but that's the tennor of the piece: Everything would have been fine for the Government except that Campbell effectively didn't believe that the BBC had any right to put out anything critical of the Government. Maybe Campbell thought Gavyn Davies and Dyke were Government stooges and his letters were to try and remind them of that fact. Dyke's main point was that the entire argument over weapons of mass destruction and the dossier about Iraq's WMD was not one the Government wanted to have but was instigated by Campbell, pulling in the Government to fight his fight. Dyke points to several occasions where something was said in correspondance from Blair that was then contradicted in press releases by Campbell, eventually leading to assurances that Blair would not call for heads to roll at the BBC following the Hutton Whitewash, only to not do anything to stop or contradict Campbell when he called for that very thing the evening after the Report before.
The central irony was Dyke was asking us to believe that Tony Blair is not an 'okay kind of guy' that we all can trust and we can believe that because Greg Dyke is an 'okay kind of guy' that we all can trust. His acceptence of the fact the BBC did make mistakes rather depends on whether you believe he believes that, or whether he's saying it only because he doesn't work for the BBC any more. To say the BBC should have held an enquiry after Campbell complained, well, if they did that every time he complained then would have genuinely destroyed the BBC as he complained at least once a day. And it's also a judgement that really can only made in hindsight, if Campbell hadn't stirred things up by dragging this small report that few people would have heard into the full glare of daylight then it would have died and only left-wing wackos like me would have been muttering bitterly that the Government's facts were wrong, it's Campbell we have to thank for the entire world knowing the British Government lied about the evidence to support the need for immediate regime change in Iraq. That's Campbell's legacy to the Government he was supposed to serve.
An interesting paragraph buried in the middle of this article on the continuing clusterfuck that is the Allies handling of post-Saddam Iraq:
The US public is just as ignorant of the surging violence in Iraq because, ironically, it is now too dangerous for American television crews and print journalists to cover it. In the battle for Najaf in August, US correspondents with the dateline "Najaf" on their copy, or reports to camera, were often "embedded" with US forces several miles away from the fighting. The result? Network news in the US gives the quite false impression that Iraq is a crisis under control.
Shrubya is able to get away with posturing as a 'war president' without anyone pointing at his lack of clothes because it's too dangerous in Iraq for the American media to show how dangerous it is in Iraq. Although I do question quite how it's somehow safer for British journalists. After all, we invaded the country too, British personnel are also being taken hostage, surely we're not being seen as better than the US troops? Or is it just our journalists are more brave/suicidal?
I watched Greg Dyke's rant against New Labour and Alistair Campbell in particular on Channel 4, Betrayed by New Labour. It was incredibly self-serving, of course, starting with how he got the job of DG at the Beeb. Dyke almost goes as far as to say "I would have been a great New Labour stooge, if it wasn't for that meddlesome Campbell!" but that's the tennor of the piece: Everything would have been fine for the Government except that Campbell effectively didn't believe that the BBC had any right to put out anything critical of the Government. Maybe Campbell thought Gavyn Davies and Dyke were Government stooges and his letters were to try and remind them of that fact. Dyke's main point was that the entire argument over weapons of mass destruction and the dossier about Iraq's WMD was not one the Government wanted to have but was instigated by Campbell, pulling in the Government to fight his fight. Dyke points to several occasions where something was said in correspondance from Blair that was then contradicted in press releases by Campbell, eventually leading to assurances that Blair would not call for heads to roll at the BBC following the Hutton Whitewash, only to not do anything to stop or contradict Campbell when he called for that very thing the evening after the Report before.
The central irony was Dyke was asking us to believe that Tony Blair is not an 'okay kind of guy' that we all can trust and we can believe that because Greg Dyke is an 'okay kind of guy' that we all can trust. His acceptence of the fact the BBC did make mistakes rather depends on whether you believe he believes that, or whether he's saying it only because he doesn't work for the BBC any more. To say the BBC should have held an enquiry after Campbell complained, well, if they did that every time he complained then would have genuinely destroyed the BBC as he complained at least once a day. And it's also a judgement that really can only made in hindsight, if Campbell hadn't stirred things up by dragging this small report that few people would have heard into the full glare of daylight then it would have died and only left-wing wackos like me would have been muttering bitterly that the Government's facts were wrong, it's Campbell we have to thank for the entire world knowing the British Government lied about the evidence to support the need for immediate regime change in Iraq. That's Campbell's legacy to the Government he was supposed to serve.
An interesting paragraph buried in the middle of this article on the continuing clusterfuck that is the Allies handling of post-Saddam Iraq:
The US public is just as ignorant of the surging violence in Iraq because, ironically, it is now too dangerous for American television crews and print journalists to cover it. In the battle for Najaf in August, US correspondents with the dateline "Najaf" on their copy, or reports to camera, were often "embedded" with US forces several miles away from the fighting. The result? Network news in the US gives the quite false impression that Iraq is a crisis under control.
Shrubya is able to get away with posturing as a 'war president' without anyone pointing at his lack of clothes because it's too dangerous in Iraq for the American media to show how dangerous it is in Iraq. Although I do question quite how it's somehow safer for British journalists. After all, we invaded the country too, British personnel are also being taken hostage, surely we're not being seen as better than the US troops? Or is it just our journalists are more brave/suicidal?
