On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Robert Gonzalez wrote: > I am curious to hear from our British PDML's if this is a big deal in > England or if the american radio has blown it out of proportion again...
No, it's big, big news here in the UK too. If Lord Hutton's findings had gone the other way, then it could possibly have brought down the governement (or at least cost Tony Blair his job as Prime Mininster). A large segment of the press are screaming 'whitewash' this morning, but since the report amounts to a condemnation of their methods, in the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies*, they would say that wouldn't they? Funnily, before yesterday many of the very same people claimed Lord Hutton was a saint and a paragon of impartiality :-) It's come at a bad time for the BBC since their charter (the rules under which they operate as a public corporation) are due for renewal in a couple of years and there are an awful lot of powerful people who would like to see the licence fee abolished and the BBC forced to compete in the commercial market. That would be a shame in my opinion as most of the time their non-commercial presence on our airwaves is a force for good. Chris * Do a google search for 'Profumo' if you care. Or an Internet Movie Database search for "Scandal" :-)
