Date: Sat Jun 28, 2003 10:53 am
Subject: Who the hell do Campbell and new labour think they are?




New labour like to use the bbc to slag off us English, but now they
are getting it back, suddenly the bbc are demonic!
I have never seen such hypocrisy! I notice Blair and the wicked
witch are hiding! Cowards!


This is totally ridiculous. Campbell is acting like a dictator! I
never thought i'd see the day in England when some petty little
piece of dirt thought he could kill democracy stonedead.
New labour and the rest are a disease that needs cutting out. There
is no other way as these scumbags think they are able to lie and
cheat, IN OUR NAME BY THE WAY, to their evil hearts content!
There must be consequences after this joke. We all know new labour
made up that dossier so why is Campbell even acting like a brat?
He obviously thinks he's above everyone!


Saturday, 28 June, 2003, 10:06 GMT 11:06 UK

The row shows no sign of abating

The row between Downing Street and the BBC, over claims the
government exaggerated intelligence information to gain support for
the Iraq war, has intensified.

Fisheries minister Ben Bradshaw said the BBC had failed to answer
questions raised by the prime minister's communications director,
Alastair Campbell.

Mr Campbell used a live interview on Channel 4 News on Friday to hit
back at the corporation after receiving a letter from the head of
BBC News, Richard Sambrook, accusing him of intimidatory tactics.

Mr Sambrook says the corporation has nothing to apologise for, and
has set out its position in the letter to Mr Campbell.

But Downing Street said on Saturday that it was still waiting
for "adequate" answers to its questions and wanted an apology.

Mr Bradshaw said the letter failed to address Downing Street's
assertion that the BBC had failed to back up its central allegation.

That was that the government had put information into a dossier on
the threat posed by Iraq, knowing it to be untrue.


Bradshaw said: "What you (the BBC) have in effect done is accuse the
government from the prime minister downwards, including the
intelligence services, of misleading parliament."


Mr Bradshaw denied the government's attack on the BBC was a
smokescreen to divert attention away from the issue of Iraqi
weapons.


It is our firm view that No 10 tried to intimidate the BBC in its
reporting of events leading up the war and during the course of the
war itself

Richard Sambrook



He said: "It's not the government that's been perpetuating this,
it's you, and for you now to accuse the government of a smokescreen
by challenging the integrity of BBC journalism is astonishing."


Mr Bradshaw said he was confident the government's claim that Iraq
could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes would be
vindicated by the two inquiries which are investigating the issue.


The row was sparked by BBC defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan's
report last month, claiming a senior intelligence official told him
Downing Street had asked that extra emphasis be given in the dossier
to the 45 minute claim.

'Jaw-dropping'

Mr Campbell told Channel 4 News: "The BBC should acknowledge they
have made a mistake and then should apologise to the government."

His interview was surprising as earlier No 10 had rejected a request
for him to appear.


Mrs Thatcher's former press secretary, Bernard Ingham, told
Today: "Either he's flipped his lid, completely gone crackers, or
else he's de-mob happy, and if he isn't someone should give him
reason to be."

BBC political editor Andrew Marr described the interview as "jaw-
dropping", saying the bitterness of the row between the BBC and the
government was unprecedented.

Mr Campbell denied any personal agenda against Mr Gilligan.

He censured the BBC for its argument that the intelligence source
behind the story was credible, saying there was not a "shred of
evidence" to back up the claim.

Two committees

"They now say you can say anything you want on the television
because somebody said it to you. It doesn't matter if it's true,"
said Mr Campbell.

Asked if it was time he resigned now he was "part of the story", Mr
Campbell replied: "The reason I am part of the story is that a BBC
journalist made an allegation about me".

The Commons foreign affairs select committee has been investigating
the use of intelligence by government in considering the case for
war.

Mr Campbell's defence was to attack the BBC

William Parsons, UK


Who do you believe?

Mr Campbell had already told the committee the 45 minutes claim was
in the "very first draft" of September's dossier.

The September dossier was one of two issued by the government on
Iraq.


The second - the so-called "dodgy dossier" - released this year,
plagiarised an academic work.

Mr Campbell apologised to MPs on the select committee earlier this
week for that mistake.