Hutton Dressed As Lamb

‘THEY came to bury Tony Blair, not to praise him – but the absolute exoneration of the Prime Minister by Lord Hutton yesterday has rather taken the wind out of their sails.

Putting a spoke into the wheel of the news cycle

Not that such details bother the likes of the Daily Mail, which immediately declares it a whitewash and convicts Blair and his evil henchman Alastair Campbell on all counts.

Hutton, it says, ‘blithely ignores (or is ignorant of) the context in which this sordid and unedifying saga unfolded’.

‘He clearly has an Establishment mind-set that assumed politicians and civil servants always tell the truth, while other witnesses are shown far less indulgence.’

In other words, the bastard didn’t agree with us.

The Express also mentions the word ‘whitewash’ under its breath, saying that Lord Hutton ‘simply failed to ask fundamental questions about the war that are crying out for answers’.

The Mirror accepts the report’s findings that the accusations against Blair, Campbell and Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon were unfounded, but reminds its readers that 272 days after the start of the war, Saddam’s fabled weapons of mass destruction are unfound.

And the Star takes its eyes off Jordan’s breasts just long enough to report that Jan Kelly, the widow of the man whose death prompted the inquiry, is preparing a fierce counter-attack to defend her ‘betrayed’ husband’s name.

‘She feels her husband was betrayed by his superiors and hung out to dry by them so they could dismiss criticism of the war,’ a family friend says.

‘They dumped on him in the most underhand way to save their own skins. And she will have her say.’

Whether this say will include criticism of the very Press who now seek sanctimoniously to honour Dr David Kelly’s memory but who in the summer were the very people who were camped outside his Oxfordshire house and forced him and his family to flee for a safe house we do not know.

But one thing is for sure – there are few sights less edifying than a country’s press dressing up self-interest, prejudice and commercial considerations as matters of principle.

The idea that the Mail cares more about Dr Kelly because it puts a picture of his snow-covered grave on its front page than Alastair Campbell, who it claims lives in a world ‘in which lies are told, revenge pursued and human feelings forgotten’, is laughable.

And the idea that the stinging attacks on the BBC in Rupert Murdoch’s Sun and in Richard Desmond’s Express and Star are not influenced by their owners’ other media interests is absurd.

A plague on all their houses.’

Posted: 29th, January 2004 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink