"AS ANY inept DIY bodger could tell you, whitewash, applied carefully and thinly will last years. Too thick and it will flake off in no time." - Letter to The Guardian, 29 January 2004

The long awaited report by 'Lord' Hutton on the 'Kelly affair' was so blatantly and crudely one sided that it has produced a massive public backlash against the 'exonerated' Tony Blair and his crony Alistair Campbell.

The 'collateral' damage to the government and its legal hit man, Hutton, is unprecedented in its scope and intensity. Polls taken a few days after in newspapers and in TV programmes show that three times as many people were prepared to accept the BBC's version of the truth as that of the government. Blair's personal rating in the ICM poll in The Guardian was minus 17 points, with 55% of voters unhappy with his performance.

Support for the war has dropped by six points, with less than half of voters now in support. Contrary to Hutton, 45% of voters believe the prime minister lied over his claim that he did not authorise the leaking of Dr Kelly's name. More people believe that Blair should have resigned than those who supported Greg Dyke resigning as the head of the BBC.

An avalanche of criticism and condemnation has rained down on Hutton. Even pillars of the establishment, such as Lord Rees Mogg, former deputy chairman of the BBC, have waded in, declaring: "I don't have any confidence in Hutton." Many capitalists luminaries like this, unlike the socialist and the Socialist Party, did have confidence that Hutton, one of their kind, would act fairly and 'judiciously'.

But why should this scion of the aristocratic Unionist ascendancy of Northern Ireland act any differently than he did? He was a defending barrister of soldiers arising from the discredited Widgery inquiry set up after the Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland in 1972. Moreover, there is a long standing tradition of 'inquiries', judicious or otherwise, being used by governments, usually Tory governments, to cover up their crimes and misdemeanours.

The difference this time is that the inquiry was public, shedding light into the dark corners, the intrigues, dirty dealings and dishonesty of capitalist governments and their state.

The documented evidence overwhelmingly pointed to the guilt of Blair on the key issues. This showed that the intelligence evidence was changed by Blair and Campbell, that (a) they colluded in the 'outing' of Kelly who was alleged to have taken his own life, and (b) that the notorious 45-minute claim was altered to give the impression that Britain could be attacked by Saddam's non-existent weapons of mass destruction at 45 minutes notice.
The original title of the intelligence dossier - "programmes of weapons of mass destruction" - was altered. The word 'programme' was eliminated.

Both Blair and Bush are now falling back on this word as justification for the war. But this and Hutton's report cut no ice with the British people, outraged at this colossal cover up. In their millions they protested in the last year against the war and its effects. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, as well as troops, estimated at 55,000 by John Pilger, together with British, US and other troops, died for what a Tory, Max Hastings, has called a "war on a false prospectus".

It is this massive anti-war feeling, together with the fact that Britain is no longer a deferential society, which explains the indignation of Hutton and Blair. The gloating of Blair and Campbell the day after the report undoubtedly reinforced the sense of public outrage. One Labour apparatchik triumphantly declared of Hutton: "Make that man a duke." Instead of this, however, the report and its author have been discredited in a matter of days.

WMDs

Blair himself, rather than basking in the afterglow of this 'triumph' came under pressure to emulate his buddy, Bush, in declaring, 'it wasn't me, guv, it was the intelligence spooks who got it wrong'. Up to now, like the character in the famous Monty Python sketch who declares that the parrot is still alive despite all the evidence, Blair has insisted that WMDs, or at least 'programmes', will be discovered. But now David Kay, Bush's own hunter for WMDs in Iraq, has concluded what we and others consistently argued before the Iraq invasion, that Saddam's WMDs do not exist. He has declared: "We were all wrong."

This 'we' refers to Blair, Bush and their pro-war supporters and, yes, they did get it wrong while the millions who marched against the war, and who still oppose the war and its consequences, were right. If the 'intelligence community' got it wrong it shatters the whole premise of the Bush doctrine of 'pre-emptive strike'.

Will Blair and Bush, therefore, follow the example of Dyke and Davis at the BBC and 'fall on their swords', resign? Not a bit of it. Bush is preparing to set up another "inquiry into US intelligence" and the information allegedly supplied to him on WMDs. Blair is to follow suit, thereby hoping to deflect responsibility for the war onto the 'un-intelligence community' in Britain and the US.

This manoeuvre, however, is fraught with difficulties, perhaps more for Blair than Bush. Bush hopes that his congressional supporters can delay the results of such an inquiry until after November's presidential elections. If Blair concedes an inquiry, again narrowly restricting it to intelligence issues and not the overall reasons for war, then it is likely to report well before a general election is called.

Those who opposed and demonstrated against the war, as well as the dead and mutilated victims in Iraq, have no need for any more whitewashes, cover-ups in the form of more US and British 'inquiries'. No trust in capitalist governments to honestly and democratically examine their own actions, particularly on the most crucial of events, going to war!

If there are to be any more 'inquiries' let them be convened by the organisations of working class people in Britain and the US and, moreover, on the broad general reasons for this war and the culpability of capitalist politicians, and not on this or that aspect, which can allow the perpetrators of the Iraq adventure to go unpunished.

Blair and Bush and their cronies unleashed a war not for 'liberation' in Iraq, but for the imperialist plunder of Iraqi resources, particularly oil. They have created devastation and terrible suffering for the peoples of Iraq and the world.

They should be driven from office. But the alternative is not their capitalist critics, whose concern is not for the British or Iraqi people but in defending their own system and preventing similar adventures in the future which could endanger this. The real alternative is a new mass party of the working class, pledged to oppose war and militarism by establishing a new democratic socialist society.

Allegedly, there's a civil war going on inside the BBC. But if so, it is a civil war of unequal proportions. The overwhelming majority of the BBC's workforce are incandescent at the attempted witch-hunt of the BBC by one wing of the establishment around Hutton and the government. They are almost as angry at the establishment inside the BBC who are preparing to roll over and play dead to satisfy Alistair Campbell's bloodlust.

But many BBC workers realise that behind the war with the government are more than just the issues of BBC independence and integrity. Many suspect, correctly, that another agenda is emerging more openly in the run-up to the BBC's charter renewal.

The Hutton Inquiry report was leaked to the Sun, confirming how close the Murdoch empire is to Blair and his courtiers. The Downing Street clique will be delighted for Murdoch to increase his already substantial influence in Britain at the expense of the BBC and other media organisations (some of whom, like ITV and the Telegraph group are also experiencing crises at present).

If Murdoch were to expand his slimy tentacles it would suit Blair and Campbell to have a public broadcasting system similar to Murdoch's Fox News in the USA, which uncritically repeats every sliver of propaganda from the Bush regime.

The BBC was not, contrary to some government insiders' claims, anti-war; as anyone who tried to get media coverage for the anti-war movement would confirm. The BBC proved during the war that it is part of the establishment. But, having to reflect public anger, neither was the BBC completely uncritical of the government, which is what Blair and Campbell wanted.

Factual reporting

BBC heads and Andrew Gilligan himself admitted that (relatively minor) errors were made of attribution with his initial source. But as the full transcript of Hutton reveals, Gilligan's story was overwhelmingly correct (as was Susan Watt's Newsnight piece, which made the same point and was based on the same source, Dr David Kelly).

Indeed, all the BBC's reporting under scrutiny at the Hutton Inquiry was immeasurably more factual and accurate than government intelligence dossiers. And, none of the BBC reports were at all influenced by 'subconscious' thought processes.

After Hutton polls show a substantial majority of the public believe the BBC told the truth, by a margin of 3:1 against the government. The 'accuracy' of Gilligan's report and the subsequent government/BBC war was a diversion from the real issues raised by BBC reporting after the war, which Blair is increasingly under pressure over.

It remains to be seen who will replace Gavyn Davies and Greg Dyke. But, whoever emerges, BBC workers will have to ensure that their trade union organisations take a determined stand to protect any journalist or BBC employee who faces pressure for being critical of the government, big business or any establishment figure.

The National Union of Journalists' threat of organising strike action if Andrew Gilligan was sacked was not put to the test - Gilligan resigned. Nevertheless, BBC workers will stage protest action again on 5 February.

BBC workers and the wider public can have no trust in the BBC board of governors, whose "grovelling" apology to the government is viewed as a humiliation by BBC staff.

Instead, to ensure a BBC free from commercial influence and ensuring relatively independent journalism, the BBC board should be genuinely representative of society as a whole, which includes having elected representatives from workers' organisations like the trade unions.

We want a real inquiry, carried out by elected representatives of ordinary people, including trade union and community groups.

We have had enough of Blair’s lies and deception. He lied about WMD, he lied about introducing top-up fees and he lied about public services.

A war for oil and power

Blair and Bush and their cronies unleashed a war not for ‘liberation’ in Iraq, but for the imperialist plunder of Iraqi resources, particularly oil.

They have created devastation and terrible suffering. They should be driven from office.

For a new mass party

But the alternative is not Blair’s capitalist critics, whose concern is not for the British or Iraqi people but defending their own system and preventing more Bush-style adventures in the future that could endanger capitalism’s stability.

The real alternative is a new mass party of the working class, pledged to oppose militarism by establishing a new democratic socialist society.

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