The ABC and the BBC.(Letter to the editor)

SIR: Geoffrey Luck's article "Can We Trust the ABC?" (June 2008) shows how slippery a fish bias can be, and how difficult it is to stand apart and give a balanced account of events. To demonstrate rampant and unrepentant bias in the BBC, he chose the incident of the weapons of mass destruction dossier, which Tony Blair used to convince a wavering House of Commons to support a war in Iraq. Unfortunately, his own version of events is clearly biased. Why this should be so, I have no idea, but to lay David Kelly's death at Andrew Gilligan's door, dismiss Greg Dyke's not unreasonable questioning of Lord Hutton's inherent partiality as contemptible spin and portray the Labour government's attack on the BBC as being not only reasonable, but vindicated, indicates considerable bias.

The facts are that David Kelly was among a small group of Iraq weapons inspectors who were well placed to evaluate the merits of the dossier. He spoke to Andrew Gilligan because he was convinced the dossier had been deliberately "sexed up" to mislead. He killed himself not because of "Gilligan's loose report", but because Tony Blair's aides identified him to the media, and crucified him for giving public voice to his expert misgivings, against Civil Service rules. I am no apologist for Greg Dyke, whose conduct throughout the affair was poor and his resignation inevitable, but his comments about Lord Hutton, given during the Ramona Koval interview, were valid. Lord Hutton was not in a position to assess the merits of the dossier, and was not likely to stray too far from the line laid out for him by the government. Tony Blair's reputation was on the line and his staff ...