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Unfair, unbalanced, and afraid. Oxford, EnglandEVERY YEAR, every household in Britain with a color television set has to pay a licensing fee of approximately $187. The resulting $4.3 billion constitutes 90 percent of the annual $4.8 billion domestic broadcasting budget of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Inspectors from the TV Licensing Agency patrol neighborhoods using wireless detectors to attempt to pick up the "local oscillator" signal from a television in use. Anyone caught using a TV without a license is subject to a fine of up to $1,600. It doesn't matter if you watch TV once a month; it doesn't matter...

<p>The worst thing that can be said of a serious news organization is that it is cavalier about reporting the truth as it understands it. Gain a reputation for political bias in reports billed as objective and you can be sure to lose the trust--and patronage--of a significant part of your audience. So only a media giant whose shareholders are under lock and key could be as sanguine as the British Broadcasting Corporation's senior management has been after this week's embarrassing revelations.</p>

BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan LIED to MPs about the sexed-up dossier affair, it was revealed yesterday. He also MISLED them about his contacts with tragic Ministry of Defence weapons expert Dr David Kelly. And in a dramatic twist to the war between the BBC and No10 he was BLASTED by his own boss for “flawed” reporting. As Gilligan, 34, gave evidence on the second day of the Hutton Inquiry into Dr Kelly’s suicide, the full text of the secret evidence the reporter gave to the foreign affairs select committee was released. It showed he changed his story about the role...

BBC reporters reveal Kelly's unease at No. 10 spinBy FT StaffPublished: August 13 2003 12:44 | Last Updated: August 13 2003 14:40 Two BBC reporters have told the judicial inquiry into the death of David Kelly of the unease expressed by the weapons scientist over the level of  Downing Street "spin" involved in compiling a dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destructionA taped telephone conversation submitted as evidence by Susan Watts, science editor of the BBC programme Newsnight , appears to implicate No. 10's press office in "sexing up" the government's case for war.Gavin Hewitt, a special correspondent for the BBC Ten O'Clock News, also said...

Gilligan damned by evidence of colleaguesBy Bob Sherwood, Legal CorrespondentPublished: August 12 2003 20:55 | Last Updated: August 12 2003 20:55 Andrew Gilligan has long been under no illusion that he has critics. But when he appeared before Lord Hutton on Tuesday could not have expected to be damned, not by a practitioner of the Downing Street black arts, but by his BBC colleagues.Initially the journalist appeared to be surviving the scrutiny. He mounted a calm defence of his reporting on the second day of the judicial inquiry into why David Kelly, the weapons expert, apparently committed suicide after being...

BBC reporter refused to name Kelly (Filed: 13/08/2003) A BBC journalist has told the inquiry into David Kelly's death how she was pressurised by her managers to name the weapons expert as the source of her reports on No 10's Iraq dossier. Susan Watts: evidence Susan Watts, the science editor of BBC2's Newsnight, said that her bosses had wanted her to back up a report by Andrew Gilligan on Radio 4's Today programme that Downing Street had "sexed up" the dossier. But Miss Watts - who ran two stories on Newsnight based on conversations with Dr Kelly - said she...

Watts: 'Kelly did not blame Campbell' Click here to enter the Hutton inquiry website Jason Deans and Julia Day Wednesday August 13, 2003 Watts: said today's papers had misinterpreted her comments BBC Newsnight reporter Susan Watts appears to have made a shock u-turn, denying David Kelly told her Alastair Campbell had inserted the claim Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes into the government dossier making the case for war. She denied the government's director of communications was involved in any way in "transforming the weapons dossier" and "did not insert the 45 minute claim". Watts told...

Gay bishops, dwindling congregations: the Anglican crisis continues, and some are calling for disestablishment. But, says Peter Hitchens, the link between Church and State is vital for our wellbeing If the Archbishop of Canterbury does not crown our next monarch, then who will? The president of Europe? A multi-faith collective? Nobody at all? In which case, what sort of country will we then be and where will ultimate authority and legitimacy come from? Perhaps the prior question is why there should now be serious doubt about the Archbishop’s role at the heart of our constitution. It says something about the...

Andrew Gilligan’s story that Downing Street had “sexed up” the dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been “marred by flawed reporting,” according to the editor of the Today programme where his reports first appeared

Yesterday in the Royal Courts of Justice, Andrew Gilligan effectively called David Kelly a liar. Days after a government spokesman had smeared Dr Kelly as a fantasist with delusions of grandeur, Gilligan alleged explicitly that the civil servant's evidence to Parliament had been systematically and knowingly false.

Yesterday in the Royal Courts of Justice, Andrew Gilligan effectively called David Kelly a liar. Days after a government spokesman had smeared Dr Kelly as a fantasist with delusions of grandeur, Gilligan alleged explicitly that the civil servant's evidence to Parliament had been systematically and knowingly false. What are we to make of this? In this war of attrition between the two most powerful forces in British public life - the elected government and the BBC - both sides seem in effect to be undermining the reputation of a dead man who, by all previous accounts, was known for his...

Round one to Campbell By SIMON HUGHESand TREVOR KAVANAGH RELATED STORIES • Sun Says DOWNING Street was dramatically cleared lastnight of “sexing up” adossier on Iraqi arms. Tony Blair and his media supremo Alastair Campbell emerged as the clear winners from the first day of the Hutton inquiry into the suicide of Dr David Kelly, 59. Lord Hutton was told Mr Campbell played NO role in the warning that Saddam was 45 minutes from war. Mr Campbell had NO knowledge of the threat until after it was inserted in the dossier. And there was NO objection from MI6 or intelligence...

A brilliant scientist showered with praise, but not pay Kelly was trapped in 'black hole' of Whitehall machine Richard Norton-Taylor Tuesday August 12, 2003 The Guardian A picture emerged yesterday of one of the world's most respected experts on Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programme poorly treated by a Whitehall machine which came to regard him as a threat it could not control. The Hutton inquiry's first day of evidence showed, through internal documents and witnesses, how David Kelly's valuable advice was widely sought by a Whitehall which had little concern for his personal wellbeing. Terry Taylor, a fellow UN...

Scandalous   By David Frum Posted: Monday, July 28, 2003 ARTICLES National Review   Publication Date: August 11, 2003 Everybody seems to agree that the suicide of Dr. David Kelly, the British defense analyst, is a prelude to a scandal--but nobody can quite seem to decide whose scandal it is. The Blair government's? The BBC's? That of Kelly himself? For an American audience, the scandal is especially hard to understand, because it originated in a British media culture that is unlike anything that exists on this continent. There's no American equivalent of the BBC, which created the scandal. The BBC...

The sad case of Dr David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence scientist, grows ever more complex. What began as a dispute between Downing Street and the BBC over the veracity of a government dossier has turned into a bitter quarrel involving Parliament as well. A judicial investigation has been set up to sift grain from chaff, and its outcome, it is said, might threaten the futures of the BBC director-general, the Secretary of State for Defence, Alastair Campbell, perhaps even the Prime Minister himself. The dust cloud created has obscured the original principals. Andrew Gilligan, the BBC journalist whose meeting...

The controversy surrounding the suicide of Dr. David Kelly, a British weapons scientist, has touched upon a variety of subjects. Among others, it has rekindled the debate between the notions of public and government broadcasting. This isn't the same as the debate between public and private broadcasting. That debate is alive and well, but it's about a different topic. The debate here concerns the question of whether a publicly owned broadcaster should be under the government's control -- as it would be in most countries -- or if it should, like the BBC or CBC, be independent from the government...

In the 48 hours since the death of UK WMD scientist David Kelly several key pieces of evidence concerning his final hours and frame of mind have now come to light. These are extracted from key articles and linked below. Notably they do not point to a seemingly suicidal or internally tortured end for the scientist who has taken to the grave the truth about his relationship with the UK PM's office and the alleged "sexing up" of Iraqi WMD intelligence. In the wake of some reports that the death has been "confirmed as suicide" it is important for news...

What is the point of Lord Hutton's inquiry? He is to look into the specific circumstances of David Kelly's death, but has declined to look into the original dispute between the Government and BBC over the wider circumstances that helped bring it about. This will ensure he keeps his judicial skirts clean and also that he addresses no question worth addressing. It has been suggested that Dr Kelly needed to be "protected" by the MoD from exposure. Why? If Kelly was giving his unauthorised spin to journalists, then the MoD had every right to be firm. If he revealed information...

Dead scientist revealed Iraq dirty bomb By Nicholas Rufford / The Sunday Times London - David Kelly, the British weapons expert at the centre of the Iraq dossier row, had amassed firm evidence to show that Saddam Hussein built and tested a "dirty bomb." Designed to cause cancer and birth defects, the radiological weapon could have been used by terrorists to create panic and widespread contamination in a crowded city. Kelly, who committed suicide last month, presented evidence of the bomb to the government in 1995 and recommended to Foreign Office officials that it feature in the government's intelligence dossier...

The backlash: growing doubts over Kelly's story By Andy McSmith, Political Editor 03 August 2003 David Kelly's family will have to fight a rearguard battle to prevent his reputation from being shredded in the forthcoming Hutton inquiry, it became increasingly clear this weekend. The scientist, whose funeral is being held on Wednesday, is likely to come under posthumous attack from both the Government and the BBC, with one side disputing his allegations about events leading up to the war with Iraq, and the other accusing him of lying about conversations with journalists. One senior BBC source described the confrontation between...