The Hutton Report, will people believ it?

[Misodoctakleidist]

This morning the Hutton report cleared the government of any wrong doing in the death of Dr Kelly but will this lead to an increase in trust in the Labour party or disilluosionment with the establishment in general? I find it hard to believe that the general public will just accept the hutton report unquesitoningly and rather than the boost to the government that media is claiming this is, i think it will result in a distrust of the establishment in general. I just can't imagine people believing that the government is totaly innocent. What does everyone else think?

[The Feral Underclass]

The report only exonerates the government of having nothing to do with the death. It does not say that the war was justiyfied. The government used this report to try and move away from the real issue. The fact that there are no weapons of mass destruction. I think the british people know that they were lied to. No weapons have been found. Ive been out of the UK political loop for a few months so im not clued up on the entire situation in england at the moment in regards to what is happening about iraq and the WMD's. I can only assume that there is still anger. And unless Blair has one of those men in black memory erasers people are not going to forget they were lied to.

[Invader Zim]

It was a blatant fix.

Sorry for a one liner but thats all there is to it.

[Kez]

Hutton Whitewash – Blair cannot run forever (http://www.socialist.net/html/editorial__hutton_whitewash_-_.html)

Hutton Whitewash – Blair cannot run forever

British Socialist Appeal Editorial Statement

The Hutton inquiry produced few surprises. Naturally Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell were exonerated. This inquiry was no different to any of its predecessors, since no such inquiry ever found a government to be guilty. It was a whitewash.

Yet it goes further, condemning the BBC and vilifying the man at the centre of the inquiry, weapons expert Dr. David Kelly driven beyond the edge of reason by the desire of the government to silence all criticism. Not content with the man's death they now pursue his reputation beyond the grave. Kelly's tragic death has not dissuaded them from their course in the slightest.

This is a government hell-bent on suppressing all opposition. The tiny right-wing clique around Tony Blair is not content with elbowing aside the Parliamentary Labour Party and turning the cabinet into a rubber stamp. Now they want to stifle the press, journalists and the BBC in particular and close off yet another avenue for criticism.

Marxism has no illusions in the independence of the press any more than the judiciary. The BBC in particular has long played the most baleful role in relation to the workers' movement. Witness their appalling coverage during the miners' strike, recalled so vividly in their recent documentary which sought not only to rewrite history but also as a warning to workers today. 'Militancy is a thing of the past, do not dare to try it again.' Nevertheless, individual journalists can play a certain role in exposing the lies and deception perpetrated by governments to justify the unjustifiable. In general those who run the media do so in the interests of the capitalist system. But are we now to have a press run by government department? Are journalists to submit their by-lines to government censors before publication?

The conclusions of Hutton's report were known in advance, both because they were obvious, and also because this inquiry into leaks was itself leaked. Blair is said to be "furious", yet one would have to ask which potential headline of January 28 Blair would prefer "Humiliating 'victory' on top-up fees" or "Blair cleared by Hutton". As a lawyer Blair will be familiar with the phrase 'cui bono' – who benefits?

Save for the nasty attacks on the one man not able to give evidence, and the new assault on the press, Hutton's conclusions are also irrelevant. Naturally Blair and co got off scott free. Nothing more was to be expected. Yet every day that this fills the papers is a daily reminder of the war in Iraq, and for that there will be a reckoning at the polls and inside the labour movement.

The ever increasing concentration of power in the hands of a small clique around Blair, further exposed by this inquiry, also points to a far more important conclusion than anything Hutton says in his report. The continued erosion of democracy, limited as it is under capitalism, with the continual downgrading of parliament, and attacks on the press, both of whom provided at least some measure of a safeguard in the past, for all their limitations, is not a secondary question. The attacks on workers' rights, combined with the undermining of democracy, and new measures like those proposed in the new emergency powers legislation must serve as a warning to the labour movement.

The ruling class is preparing for struggles to come. We must do likewise.

Which brings us to the narrow remit of Hutton's inquiry. Some journalists have written that the whole thing is just a distraction. Indeed the pronounced innocence of Blair and co in the leaking of Dr. Kelly's name is no doubt meant as a magician's trick with mirrors, to distract attention from the real issue – there never were any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and now everyone, except Blair, admits it.

David Kay, Bush's own weapons inspector and formerly chief weapons monitor for the CIA resigned his position in January concluding that there are no weapons of mass destruction to be found in Iraq. "I don't think they existed" he stated bluntly.

This issue will not go away no matter how hard Blair's spin doctors attempt to sweep it under the carpet. Blair is now under attack from all quarters. A whitewashed inquiry will not save him any more than his 'triumph' in parliament over tuition fees.

The Tories hypocritically try to wrap themselves in a cloak of sincerity over the death of Kelly and the wider issue of the non-existence of weapons of mass destruction. No doubt we are expected to conveniently forget they enthusiastically supported for the war in Iraq.

More importantly Blair finds himself under attack in parliament, from within the Labour Party. Robin Cook who resigned from the cabinet over the war in Iraq abstained in the vote on student fees. The other cabinet minister to resign, Clare Short, was one of the leading rebels against the government. In the end they scraped home with a majority of just five votes.

Blair also faces renewed opposition from the trade union movement. Following their successes in defeating the Labour leadership at the party conference last autumn, the new leaders of Amicus, GMB, T&G, and Unison have announced their intention to call a mass meeting of Labour Party members, MPs and trade unionists to demand the implementation of their demands.

On the industrial front too, for all the warnings none too subtly delivered in TV documentaries on the miners' strike, militancy is far from dead. On the contrary it is on the march with civil servants staging their biggest national strike for 17 years following hot on the heels of the firefighters and the postal workers.

Neither the whips in parliament, nor the whitewash of a judge can save Blair now. New Labour is dead. This is not a matter of personal incompetence or the failures of spin doctors, but is determined by factors beyond their control. All the conditions which led to the triumph of Blair inside the Labour Party are turning into their opposite. The economy now balances perilously atop a mountain of debt. Twenty years of accumulated stress and anger in the workplace is beginning to burst through the surface and has already had a major impact inside the trade unions. All these factors combined with the mass opposition to the war in Iraq, and the perception that Blair and co are liars, no matter what Hutton reports, are already beginning to have an impact inside the Labour Party too. Blair's apparent iron grip has now been broken.

Just as the ruling class are preparing themselves for a new period of struggle, the working class must put its house in order too, by transforming their own organisations, the trade unions and the Labour Party.

[Misodoctakleidist]

It think we all agree that it was a whitewash but do you think the hutton report will be the boost to the Labour party that the media is portraying it to be?

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2004, 05:24 PM
It think we all agree that it was a whitewash but do you think the hutton report will be the boost to the Labour party that the media is portraying it to be?
Well on the BBC site on the Have your say part, sothing in the region of 75% of people who have "had their say" have said it was an obvious white wash. And the majority of people are pissed of with the government at the mo, so I would imagine most wont belive it for a second.

[The Children of the Revolution]

In answer to the question; no, I don't think the public will believe it. They have been fed rubbish and lies by the Blair administration (as I have started calling it) from day #1. Nothing much changes...

And even though Labour managed to "win" the vote on tuition fees, I still think these two issues will combine to damage Mr. Blair's reputation rather than enhance it. Remember, the labour parliamentary majority is over 150 - and they "won" the vote by only the smallest of margins. Plus, the media storm that preceeded the report (in which Mr. Blair was attacked quite viciously) won't go away just like that. Hopefully he'll be gone soon.



Robin Cook who resigned from the cabinet over the war in Iraq abstained in the vote on student fees.


I actually admire Robin Cook. His aparent honesty and his shocking credibility (he resigned in protest against the War, without having to be pushed - like Clare Short) are highly commendable. Shame about the other 600 morons in parliament.



The BBC in particular has long played the most baleful role in relation to the workers' movement. Witness their appalling coverage during the miners' strike, recalled so vividly in their recent documentary which sought not only to rewrite history but also as a warning to workers today. 'Militancy is a thing of the past, do not dare to try it again.'


Perhaps... And you raise a good point... But I am a huge fan of the BBC; "Thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded" they broadcast with little or no bias. Some of their documentaries (David Attenborough!!!) are superb. And Jeremy Paxman regularly tears politicians to pieces in televised Interviews. Do not be so quick to dismiss them - the BBC will likely outlast the democratic process itself!!

[New Direction]

I watched some of Question Time the other night and two things struck me.

1. The biggest government revolt in 50 years (on tuition fees) was totally forgotten.

2. The vast majority of the crowd was applauding when Ian Hislop was tearing strips off Margaret Beckett, the Labour MP, over the Hutton Report.

So it doesn't look like people are going to accept the verdict easily. Blair is a victim of his own good fortune. He has manipulated everything for so long that now the public has seen through it, I doubt if they will believe anything he says ever again.

[FabFabian]

One thing that has not been stated about the Hutton report, is that it does prove that Tony Blair is a liar. Bare with me as I am relying on my memory, but Tony Blair stated something to the effect that he had no knowledge of Dr. Kelly and his outing being discussed at any gov't meetings. In fact, on July 28th 2003 he is named as being present at a gov't meeting discussing the Kelly issue and what the gov't response should be.