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Sturgeon To End Privatisation Of GP Practices (from Scottish Sunday)

Introduction

The long-awaited Hutton report and Alastair Campbell’s victory may have brought the BBC to its knees, but gloating may be premature. Support for the broadcaster is growing and the government is losing the war for the public’s trust, reports Torcuil Crichton.

The BBC and the Crisis

“WHEN we received the letter from Campbell complaining about a report by Andrew Gilligan broadcast by the Radio 4 Today programme, the big mistake was to defend our reporting in the general sense rather than replying to the specific complaints,” says the BBC executive with the benefit of broadcast quality hindsight. “As mistakes go, Gilligan’s broadcast was flawed journalism but hardly a hanging offence.”

As the careers of the chairman Gavyn Davies, the director-general Greg Dyke and the journalist Andrew Gilligan sank following Lord Hutton’s indictment of the BBC last week, these executives were left to rue their errors. None of them could have foreseen that Campbell’s angry missive would have left the BBC engulfed in the biggest crisis in its 82-year history. It now faces the possibility of a future cowed by a government that some have said went to war against it to distract from the fallout from the real life-and-death conflict in Iraq.

Campbell’s attack was misinterpreted as the latest in a long line of complaints from Tony Blair’s spin master; Alastair Campbell sounding off yet again at the BBC’s refusal to toe the government line on the war against Iraq and its insistence to challenge the whole premise of the conflict. “You have to understand, we just could not cope with the barrage of complaints from Campbell,” a BBC insider told the Scottish Sunday. “Long letters detailing alleged mistakes and misrepresentations and demanding that we answer every specific point we raised. We felt under undue pressure as an organisation. We felt it was a case of daily harassment.”

The Fallout

Andrew Gilligan’s fateful report is now the stuff of legend. During an unscripted section of a programme broadcast at 6:07 a.m. on May 29, he asserted that the British government had inserted the claim that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction at British interests within 45 minutes, knowing that it was false.

The claim was not included in the 17 subsequent broadcasts Gilligan made on his story throughout that day but an article for the Mail on Sunday compounded his error. He said a senior intelligence source told him the 45-minute claim had been inserted at Campbell’s insistence.

“If the BBC’s governors and editorial executives had immediately launched an investigation into the 6:07 report and apologized for the insinuation, the matter would have ended there,” said the insider. “But they did not do so.”

The result of that mistake was beamed live from Court 76 of the Royal Courts of Justice last week when Lord Hutton presented the findings of his inquiry into the death of David Kelly, the former weapons inspector who killed himself after being revealed as the “senior intelligence source” who spoke to Gilligan.

The Aftermath

Of all the politicians, senior executives, and other parties who played a role in the saga that led to the discovery of Kelly’s body on Harrowdown Hill, Hutton was clear who should shoulder the vast majority of his criticism: the BBC. When it comes to car crash television, the excruciating disintegration of a subject under the unblinking lens of the camera, no one does it better than the BBC, particularly when it is the BBC that is heading for the bollards.

Every wincing detail of its own wretched humiliation at the hands of Hutton and the government was detailed minute by minute by the station across television, radio, and the internet. The corporation even printed a special edition of its in-house journal Ariel to detail Hutton’s findings.

Over 48 hours, every excoriating moment, from Hutton’s ringing condemnation to Campbell’s “ungracious” acceptance of the guillotine basket containing the heads of Davies and Dyke, was broadcast. Throughout it all, the BBC, the largest news organization in the world, could not put forward a spokesperson to put its case. On Thursday afternoon, when the corporation broadcast pictures of its own employees walking out in support of their deposed director-general, the media monitoring staff in Downing Street had difficulty deciding whether the reporting was a triumph of objectivity or surrealism.

Sturgeon's Decision

Amidst this tumultuous environment, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon made an important announcement regarding the future of GP practices. Acknowledging the public's concerns about the privatization of GP services, Sturgeon promised to end the privatization and ensure that GP practices in Scotland remain public and accessible to all.

This decision comes as a response to growing discontent among Scottish citizens who believe that privatization of GP practices would lead to increased costs and decreased quality of care. Sturgeon's commitment to maintaining public ownership of these practices aims to address these concerns and prioritize the well-being of Scottish patients.

By ending the privatization of GP practices, Sturgeon aims to ensure that healthcare remains a fundamental right for all Scottish citizens. This decision aligns with her government's larger commitment to a publicly funded and publicly provided National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland.

Conclusion

As the BBC faces the aftermath of Lord Hutton's report, it finds itself grappling with public trust and the consequences of its organizational failures. Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon's decision to end the privatisation of GP practices in Scotland demonstrates her commitment to accessible and publicly funded healthcare. As the debate over the BBC's future and the reasons for the Iraq war continue to unfold, it is imperative to prioritize the well-being and needs of the public.

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