The irrational hatred of Blair and Bush is a virus infecting the body politic. Otherwise sane, intelligent and well-educated people flip into paranoid mode when either leader's name comes up. I have had friends---professionals highly-placed in their profession---literally go into spitting rages. The Hutton report, far from calming such people, is acting as gasoline for the flames because it said the opposite of what they hoped, nay, were absolutely convinced of.

Like Melanie, I am now truly fearful for the integrity of British civil society.
Gilligan's resignation letter is almost a declaration of civil war: one of the principal forces in the balance that allows a society to function is being pushed into a highly unstable state.

When an 'Estate' explodes into irrationality, reaction follows action: the government cannot back down, the BBC and the like-minded newspapers are now so incensed that they too will find it well nigh impossible to back down either.

The government has the tools to enforce its will. Do people think that Blair would hesitate to put the BBC under close supervision, or even suspend it? Would Blair hesitate to impose martial law? Canadians thought their government would not go to such lengths until Trudeau "apprehended" an insurrection in the 70s over separatist activity in Quebec.

Weimar indeed!

One must, I suppose, learn to strip away the Jewish self-interest from Melanie's posts and see whether anything useful is left. In this one, it seems, not much. Yes, she flits lightly over the low-brow Greg Dyke - was he ever fit for the role of DG and Editor-in-Chief? Probably not, if one is to judge him by his Today interview this morning. At times he was embarrassingly unclear in his thought processes and unable to articulate a worthwhile answer. Surely, the man is a fine example of Peter's - or Roland's - principle. The BBC can only go up from here.

Then Melanie moves on to lambast the surviving BBC governors and those unhappy, protesting employees. Fair enough, the demonstrators demonstrate a distinct lack of humility in not knowing when they are beaten. It's Healey's Law. The time has come to listen for once and try something different.

Sadly, the rest of Melanie's post - really the powerful sub-text running right through it - is predictable neocon fare. It is blatently, blatently obvious that she values Israel above all things. But how much more transparent it would be if she would just say so, a la Richard Ingrams! We gentiles are perfectly capable of giving jewish minority interests a hearing. But we really and truly prefer not to have jewish minority interests foisted on us as our own. And there's the rub. At bottom, most jewish opinion and policy formers get a far higher return from opacity. It is an immoral and dishonest ploy.

Alas, it is Melanie's opinion that the immorality and dishonesty is all ours. Well I'm sorry, but my kin are not somehow cast down into degredation because a few empathy-mongers think that Jenny Tonge was right on. Neither are they found morally wanting because 56% of YouGov respondents harbour deep suspicions about Blair and the Bushite, Israel-first drive that took our forces into Iraq.

Sorry, Mel, I respect your right to evangelise jewish minority interests. But watch how you do it, kid.

If you think we are in Weimar, perhaps it's time to stop calling, explicitly or implicitly, for a strong, principled leader to come and sort us out. To impose moral order. To ignore the consensus and the howls of protest.

Of course Hutton was a whitewash. Look at what Tony Blair, with a barrister's precision, said:

"The allegation that I or anyone else lied to this House or deliberately misled the country by falsifying intelligence on WMD is itself the real lie"

Nice straw man. It wins the battle with the BBC, but anyone who followed the evidence to Hutton will know that, while Blair and Campbell did not falsify intelligence, they replaced gold-plated intelligence with material of a more dubious character, because it fitted their preconceived plans.

We went to war to defend the West's oil supplies, and only incidentally to get rid of Saddam, whom we have tolerated for many years: we even helped him fight a pointless and bloody war against the Iranians because we thought it suited us. WMD were even more incidental.

We used to defend our oil supplies with US bases in Saudi Arabia, but they have to go because, for whatever reason, the Saudi public is so incensed by their presence that they send people to kill us. Saddam had to go first, or else he would have invaded Saudi Arabia for its oil.

We were right to topple Saddam. We're not in Weimar, thank God; we're still in Britain, but we've gone back to the 18th or 19th century, when we fought wars to increase our national wealth, but made up some excuse because we couldn't bear to speak the real reason.

"We gentiles are perfectly capable of giving jewish minority interests a hearing."

How magnanimous of you, kind Gentile sir!

"But we really and truly prefer not to have jewish minority interests foisted on us as our own."

Hmm. Could you conceive, most respected Sir Gentile, that Jewish interests might actually overlap with the interests of the general populace?

Guessedworker,

Since when are following the rules of your own charter, or being more concerned with truth than your own political views, "Jewish minority interests"?

Did you post from Ramallah?

Melanie is right on all counts, as was Lord Hutton.

I fear more and more the credulity of what is fast becoming a majority of the general public in this country. Public reaction to the Law Lord's impeccable summing up of the evidence (which I read in full) and his perfectly justified findings, followed by the inevitable resignation and oustings, is reminiscent of the public reaction to the sainted Diana's rumble in the tunnel. Nauseating! The media coverage of those hearings was appalling. If journalists had listened to the brilliant summing up of the government's case by Jonathan Sumption QC during the hearing, instead of composing pieces taking the piss out of his physical tic, they possibly would not have been so surprised at Lord Hutton's findings.

I dislike this government, I didn't vote for this government and I want this government out. But to suggest that the BBC, the nation's public broadcaster to the world, should be allowed to set itself up as an alternative Government - a putsch by pen and push-button - is what makes MY blood run cold. I wonder what Gilligan would have said on Today if he had discovered that a police officer had been caught verballing a defendant with something that he had not entered in his notebook and the officer had lamely responded when caught out, "Well, it was not quite what he said, but it suited my case better than what he actually said."

I can cast my vote against Tony and his cronies - anyway it looks as though they are tearing themselves apart without my help from me. But I cannot vote out the BBC that forcibly exacts a tax from me to fund their culturally subversive activities. The drip, drip of leftist and politically correct propaganda and the promotion of sexual deviance through their 'entertainment' programmes is obnoxious. Their current affairs and news coverage is now bent so far to the left that it was bound to fall over sooner or later. The manner in which their journalists have manipulated the coverage of Hutton to their own advantage since yesterday is bordering on the criminal and certainly against all broadcasting ethics. I do not mourn the departure of a man on the bridge of the good ship BBC who suggested that the BBC was 'hideously white'. He was hideously wong (sic) and should have been sacked the next day. Wake up Britain, the BBC is at it!
It no longer represents Britain, it is a loose cannon. The Board have now accepted that, and I pray that they get a grip of some of their journalists, NUJ notwithstanding. Who the hell do they think they are? Their arrogance is breathtaking.

As for Melanie's 'Jewish agenda', what she stated above is perfectly in context with the theme of her piece and contains essential truth about the disturbing upsurge of anti-semitic and anti-American hatred in this country. She has consistently through the years represented all British traditional cultural and religious interests. Her logic is clear and unequivocal. The left hate her because they think as an ex-Guardian writer she is a turncoat. But she castigates right, left and centre when she thinks it is appropriate. She has consistently and devastatingly pointed out the failures of Blair's domestic policies and also his poor handling of his own party during the run up to the Iraq liberation. But she thinks Hutton is right and I for one agree wholeheartedly with her. Nil illegitimum carborundum, Melanie. I know you won't.

Guessedworker -

Melanie, like anyone else, can write about whatever she likes. I often disagree with her; but I dislike your attitude even more.

"We gentiles are perfectly capable of giving jewish minority interests a hearing. But we really and truly prefer not to have jewish minority interests foisted on us as our own."

Since Melanie makes no secret that she is writing from a Jewish viewpoint, and you have noticed this, I don't see how you can say that she is "foisting" her minority interests onto us.

And by the way, I object to "we gentiles". You and I don't speak with the same voice.

"We gentiles are perfectly capable of giving jewish minority interests a hearing."

You're quite right about that Herr Guessedworker, but this magnanimity has one fatal flaw: such hearings only ever occur after we have been subjected to genocide by your goodselves and never before.

By the by, has anyone else ever noticed that the anti-Semite always talks about "Jewish interests," but never "Jewish contributions"?

I ask two questions of my critics:-

1) How was the British national interest served by the invasion of Iraq?

2) In what way, if at all, does British national interest correspond to the interests of Israel?

Guessedworker

1) A glowering, bloody tyrant was removed from power in a region that is a tinder box. It was in the Global interest, ergo British interests were well served. It should have happened long before.

2) Israel is a democratic country on the front line of a volatile region, much of which has declared a terroristic war against Western Civilation and the Jews in particular. It is therefore very much in the interests of Britain that we support Israel, even though criticism of method and emphasis in their self defence is valid and a legitimate part of the political debate.

As a Briton, I know where my interests lie. Who are you? And what are you? It is easy to assert anything from behind a flippant and cowardly facade. Your views are worthless unless we known from whence they flow.

Guessedworker -
I suppose it's easier for you to ask new questions of your critics, than to answer the criticism.

For my reply to (1), see above. My reply to (2) is: I don't recall anyone saying that British and Israeli interests do or don't coincide. If this was the point of your original post, I'm sorry, this nugget of wisdom was so wrapped up in personal abuse of our host that I didn't notice it. Still can't, in fact.

Starting reading Melanie ! Weimar has absolutely no similarity with Britain. Weimar had a problem because it was called the Weimar Republic simply because it was in Weimar !

It had to go there because Berlin was the scene of Right-Left violence with the Communists fighting the Freikorps in the streets; and the Republic was always considered illegitimate by the Monarchist-Right and the Leninist Left.

Just how that is mirrored in Britain is unclear. Has the powerful Daily Mail rocked the weak Blair Administration buffeted as it is by the Leftist forces seizing the London suburbs ?

Read some history: in 1923 Lenin was having weapons shipped to Thuringia; German cities of the Ruhr were controlled by the Communists; and there was a separatist revolution in Bavaria; with a Putsch by Adolf Hitler which failed.

If that is similar to the situation in modern-day Britain you should change medication.

Maybe Lord Hutton has ignored much of the evidence; it reads differently on the Website from your column....the most-visited Website in Britain....you Melanie, should stop thinking that you know the raw evidence, others have more affinity with the Net and journalists would do well to stop broad-brush provocations and start using facts....who said

"Facts are Sacred. Opinion is Free " ?

A few more journalists should learn that phrase rather than comply with the Humber Wolfe poem:

"You cannot hope to bribe or twist (thank God!) the British journalist.
But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there's no occasion to."

The fact is simply this: noone believes the fault was on one side only. Few people accept the Geoff Hoon showed any sign he was in charge of his department; or that his department exercised any modern HR techniques with staff.

After all, if we were looking for WMD in Iraq (and yes I believe they exist as did Kelly); then it seems funny that the Chief British scientist looking for them is unknown to the Minister of Defence or the upper reaches of Government. Hans Blix is a lawyer and diplomat: Kelly was a Scientist.......the Upstairs-Downstiars World of British Government has blown up in their face.......wow, David Kelly could certainly have clarified much about Iraq's WMD had he not been abused by his employers.

As for WMD, if they are never found it makes no difference. A country goes to War on the basis of information it has at that particular time, even if subsequently it proves to have been in error. I still think, and Lord Hutton can gag on this for all I care, that Scarlett should never have been in charge of the JIC (no spook ever was before) and he should not have suppressed the information from Dr Jones in DIS.

BTW Melanie, was it not Gilligan who unearthed the European Constitution before it registered on the Daily Mail radar screen ? Remember few of us out here in Real-World think a lot of journalists, but we are in the terrible situation of John Wilkes

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/W/Wilkes-J1.asp

and as we know he was a reprobate but probably had much to do with the First Amendment in the US Constitution.

Gilligan was sloppy, he should not ave been allowed to work from home; the BBC editorial controls were ignored; but at the end of the day we have a regime in power which has leaked and leaked usually in Sunday papers; and the BBC should refuse henceforth to report anything the Government leaks unless double-sourced and should name all Ministers who brief.

There should be no more "sources" "friends" "senior official" or "little bird" and the leakers and whisperers should be named publicly so Cabinet can explode as the pressure builds and they cannot let off steam.

It is time for the BBC to encourage diversity and interview more dissidents on the record in the governing party and stop agreeing to let the Minister have the last word in interviews.

"and he should not have suppressed the information from Dr Jones in DIS"

I agree that it is most unfortunate that Campbell etc. had any input to the dossier.

However I think that Dr Jones's objections, e.g.
"Intelligence suggests" rather than "We judge"
to be to nuanced to have had any effect on the subsequent press reporting of the dossier.

After all, the 45 minutes from doom headlines did not result from the media actually reading the whole dossier. Unfortunaely Campbell's next error was to fail to seek to correct those headlines.

To correct my example of Dr Jones's concerns expressed above (which were from memory), a refresher of MOD/22/1 shows his concerns were -
Indicates rather than shows
Judge rather than know/shows

I still contend that the changes that Jones wished to see would have gone straight over the head of the reporting media.

It was also claimed (before Hutton reported) that Gilligan had investigated the shortages of military equipment supplied to our forces. The BBC got the usual threatening phone call from Downing Street, and the BBC managers (quite rightly) told them to get lost. MoD never addressed the shortages adequately, and good men have died as a result.

The whole WMD fiasco makes me sad, and sorry, about the state of the country we live in. The equipment shortages are a different matter: they make my blood boil. Perhaps Hoon and Blair would like to serve in Iraq without proper body armour or armoured vehicles. If they had to do this, it would take them about 30 seconds to miraculously find the money to pay for these items and fly them to Iraq.

Prince Andrew served as a combat helicopter pilot in the Falklands; George VI was a Midshipman at Jutland; Prince Philip was on destroyers in WWII...........Prime Minister Raymond Asquith's son was killed on The Somme...................any chance Ieuan Blair will be joining the Army when he finishes his 'discount' degree at Bristol ?

....and Edward Heath was an Artillery officer in WW2, Denis Healey was Becachmaster at Anzio; Harold Macmillan was in the treches in WWI; Attlee too, Eden too in King's Royal Rifles Corps on The Somme; but Geoff Hoon has sent more British soldies into action than any Minister since Winston Churchill...............still law graduates have all the lines and excuses today......and it is only a 'game'....the dead don't count, they aren't 'players'

Let's not forget that the Jews are indeed a minority in this country, therefore Ms Philipsl is by definition presenting a minority interest. The UK is a Christian nation, and let's not forget that, people.

Hi.

Just hang in there, Melanie, don't let the bastards grind you down as they say.

Hi.

That "hang in there" post was from me, I just forgot to add my name.

By the way, Melanie, all that stuff about your being a you-know-who - that seems to be an obsession of some of your readers, but it's not obvious in your writing. When I started reading your stuff, I didn't think from what you wrote that you had to be a Jew, I just thought that you shared my assumption that Jews are reasonable human beings too, and have the same rights as anyone else not to be killed or terrorized.

There was a time when that wasn't a "neoconservative" assumption or a view that only a Yid would take, it was the view that anyone who wanted to be accepted as a normal, decent person had to take.

I wish it would come back into fashion.

I'm sick of friends I've known all my life sliding slowly towards worse and worse views that they never, every would have adopted if they hadn't come from trusted sources like the BBC, the ABC (in Australia) and so on. One day it's a sort of wink-wink, nudge-nudge attitude to politicians, with nothing really behind it - a feeling that comes from arrogant, empty-headed journalists of being "in the know" without really knowing anything. Then later, the necessary conspiracy behind the discounted surface starts vaguely to appear - it's "neoconservatives." Then a year or so later, it's gotten to "Zionists." And it keeps going. I hold mateship sacred, but I had a moment, when a mate said that Saddam was clear of terrorism "except for Israel, and we all agree that doesn't count" ... I just went completely, utterly cold.

We should end the organizations that pour this river of filth into people's heads.

William P: "Let's not forget that the Jews are indeed a minority in this country, therefore Ms Philips, is by definition presenting a minority interest. The UK is a Christian nation, and let's not forget that, people".
Jewish Interests have always been not wanting to be on the receiving end of Genocide. Does being a Christian nation mean one shouldn't care about Jewish intersts?

Of course we should care about Jewish interests, but the Jewish commentariat do their community little favour by constantly bleating about the same old tired subjects. This applies equally to the Muslim community too. For God's sake, STOP WHINING!

"With their minds bent by this propaganda, the public are incapable of perceiving the truth but insist that the truth-teller must be a patsy because his conclusions have not corresponded with their own prejudices."

A Mr Angry in the audience of ITV's Dimpleby programme informed the world that his 12 year old daughter could have made a better assessment of the evidence than did Hutton.
This remark of stupendous stupidity was received by the audience without demur, snorts or giggles.
God help us!

"In its abandonment of truth and morality, its descent into irrationality, ignorance and propaganda and its embrace of prejudice and hatred, this society is more and more resembling the Weimar republic".

This is way over-the-top Melanie and serves to undermine some of the good points you often make.

Are some of the pronouncements of the government Orwellian? - Yes. Has it become almost impossible to use the English language when discussing politics in Britain without the words being loaded with meanings that they did not previously have (and the use of which distort 'pure truth')? Yes.

Are the general public confused over the literal truth of many of the contentious issues that are debated in society? Yes.

Is this confusion due completely to lies and immorality? NO - only partially. It is also due to overload (too much information that is for a variety of reasons simplified for public consumption need for simplification as a result of which important truths and lost).

Do people generally feel under siege from the lack of morality and truthfullness abroad in society? Some may do - but many perhaps try to get on with their own lives - filled as they tend to be with work, leisure, family, friends, aspirations, beliefs, problems - and don't inhabit the same Britain as the 'mediapoliocracy' (that strange world of virtual reality formed by those co-dependents - the political and the media classes).

It would be interesting to see Melanie turn her fire on the culprits in the mediapliocracy more generally - including those who trade on 'moral panic' in the tabloids.

Poliomediocracy sounds better - somewhere between mediocre and a terrible disease.

KJN,

"Poliomediocracy sounds better - somewhere between mediocre and a terrible disease".

LOL! Very good! I'll remember this.

Drugs r bad.. m'kay?

I wonder why cannabis causes trolls to make posts in other people's names, such as the one at 6.31am today. Another phenomena that emerges from this debate is the attempt of cannabis users to sabotage the computers of people, through e-mail messages containing viruses, who disagree with relaxing laws proscribing cannabis, Perhaps this should be a separate area for research by the cannabis quacks who propagate this strange and pervasive cult of dependence and destruction.

To the person posing as Frank Pulley:

"Drugs r bad.. m'kay?"

What does this sentence actually mean???

Will the real Frank Pulley please stand up...?

David

You'll know when it's me. I promise. But thanks for your concern. And I suppose we should not discount the fact that there is another Frank Pulley in the world, one, that is, who writes crap as a result of smoking cannabis, as opposed to the one who writes crap of his own volition. LOL

The media's behaviour surrounding Iraq has been utterly, utterly disgraceful.

When a US soldier saves the lives of, or helps civilians, it is not reported, when an incident occurs where Americans can be portrayed in a negative light, then it is proclaimed throughout the lands.
Americans must always be portrayed as oppressors, never to receive any sympathy.
This is the new rule of journalism, it seems.

Strangely, the media is quite happy to go along with cover-ups when it suits them (The cover-up surrounding Jessica Lynch's injuries has been fully sponsored by the leftist media, despite her father's rubbishing of the Army Report, and the media's muted, hostile reaction to the rape revelation smacked of political correctness).

The nasty tide of Anti-Semitism which is sweeping Europe is very real, and it is the media which are it's handmaidens. Witness the EU's refusal to release it's report on Anti-Semitism.
Why?

Often, it is those who claim to preach tolerance who are the most intolerant of all.

Their comapassion only extends to those who share their worldview, anyone else is beneath contempt.