Report fails to end dossier row

By Nick Higham
BBC media correspondent

Anyone hoping Monday's report of the Commons foreign affairs select committee would defuse the row between the government and the BBC will be cruelly disappointed.

Instead the world's oldest public service broadcaster remains locked in a bitter confrontation with the government to which - ultimately - the BBC owes its existence.

It's a fine demonstration of journalistic independence. The BBC must be hoping the government doesn't seek to exact revenge at some point in the future.

Campbell: Attacked BBC report

The committee's conclusion that Alastair Campbell did not "sex up" the first of the government's two intelligence dossiers on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction allowed the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, to claim victory and demand an apology from the BBC.

The fact that the committee was split on the issue - a split resolved only by the (Labour) chairman's casting vote - allowed the BBC to claim the original report, by the Today programme's defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan, was justified.

So did the committee's criticism of the prominence given in the government's dossier to the claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

The BBC indeed shows no signs of climbing down unless and until someone produces conclusive evidence that Andrew Gilligan's source (an unnamed senior intelligence official) was wrong.

So far, the BBC maintains, that hasn't happened.

Indeed senior BBC journalists say it would have been irresponsible, and a failure in their duty to the public, not to have broadcast.

On Sunday the BBC Governors robustly endorsed the stance taken by the management and themselves went on the offensive, demanding that Alastair Campbell withdraw his claim that large parts of the BBC "had an agenda against the war".

With the BBC sticking two fingers up to Downing Street, some thought they detected signs of an olive branch from Alastair Campbell

They issued their statement after a two-and-a-half-hour meeting with the corporation's director-general and other senior managers.

Among the governors was Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, once a senior diplomat and a former chairman herself of the government's Joint Intelligence Committee.

Perhaps she had taken her own soundings among former colleagues and concluded that the intelligence services were indeed unhappy at the way some of their material had been used in the government dossiers.

But if she did, one of those present at the meeting told me, it wasn't evident from her contributions to the governors' discussions.

With the BBC sticking two fingers up to Downing Street, some thought they detected signs of an olive branch from Alastair Campbell.

No apology demand

He issued a statement in which he once again asked the BBC to retract its story. "I note that at no point did the BBC governors in their statement last night claim that the story was true," he said, "merely that the BBC were within their rights to run it."

But he stopped short of demanding an apology as well as a retraction, nor did he repeat his earlier allegations that the BBC's overall coverage was biased.

"I want to make it clear yet again that I fully respect the independence of the BBC," he said.

Perhaps both the BBC and the government will now get bored with a stand off which neither side seems able to win, and the row will gradually fade away.

But what about the long-term relationship between the BBC and the government?

Some newspapers have suggested that taking a stand against the government could damage the BBC's chances in the forthcoming discussions about the renewal of its charter.

We shouldn't start changing our journalism to somehow improve our chances in the Charter renewal process

In a message to all his staff Greg Dyke, the BBC's director-general, said: "Personally I don't believe that, but what I'm certain of is that we shouldn't start changing our journalism to somehow improve our chances in the Charter renewal process."

The trust of the audience was fundamental to the BBC and that trust, he said, was dependent on the independence, impartiality and credibility of its reporting.

But governments in the past have not always looked charitably on broadcasters who manage to annoy them.

In 1956 the government threatened to cut the Foreign Office grant to the BBC's External Services after they broadcast newspaper reviews reflecting criticism of the controversial decision to invade Suez.

Greg Dyke will hope row has no impact on charter renewal

In the 1980s, a BBC director-general, Alasdair Milne, who had confronted the government on several occasions was unceremoniously sacked by a new chairman, Marmaduke Hussey, appointed by Downing Street to "sort out" the corporation.

And after the ITV company Thames Television broadcast Death on the Rock, a hard-hitting documentary on the SAS shooting of three IRA terrorists in Gibraltar, the government passed legislation that made it virtually impossible for Thames to win renewal of its franchise.

At the weekend, the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, said: "It is perfectly possible to separate this row now... from the wider and absolutely crucial question of charter renewal for the BBC, the role of the BBC in modern broadcasting."

The BBC will be hoping she means it.