Betrayed by New Labour was Greg Dyke's recent Channel 4 film on the Hutton debacle and his departure from the BBC.
It made for an interesting sixty minutes viewing, and one that was very typical Greg. Heavy on style and rhetoric, rather light on detail. Or to put it another way a triumph of style over substance. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the most revelatory documentary you will ever see either despite the “edgy” handheld camera work.
It sort to give a balanced account of what happened – Dyke interviewing people from the Times and David Aaronovich (who were hardly people on his side) as well as people like Gavyn Davies – but it was very much a soapbox broadcast more than anything else. A fact not helped by the non-cooperation of anyone from the Government or the BBC, both of whom declined to take part in the film.
The most enlightening part was when Greg showed a private letter from Blair to him accusing the BBC of not being positive enough about the war (this was before the military action actually kicked off and just after the mass street protests in London). Suffice to say Greg and Gavyn Davis saw the BBC’s role to report the full spectrum of public opinion and not just be a Government mouth piece – it was an interesting taste of what was to come.
It’s pretty clear that Greg still misses the Beeb and is very angry about the way he was forced out by the Governors. He slagged off their subsequent apology, and laid most of the blame for what happened firmly and squarely at the door of Campbell.
Jon Snow recounted Campbell’s famous Channel 4 interview which he described as being the product of a man close to the edge and with nothing to lose (it was widely know by then that he wanted to leave No 10,) and there was a bit of pathos too with Greg going back to his old office at the BBC which is now little more than a storage cupboard.
However, for me, the most extraordinary thing was reminding myself that this all took place only a few months ago. Watching the footage and even listening to the interviews only serves to reinforce how many personnel have already changed and how much the world has moved on.
Not sure if Greg gets that or not – I’ve no doubt he’s broadly right – the dossier was sexed up, the Government put undue pressure on the BBC, there are no WMD, and trust in the Government is bordering on next to non existent – but the world has moved on.
It’s time now for Greg to do that too.
