Pass the Bucket, Lord

So, was it a whitewash or was it the sober and considered verdict of one of the finest legal minds in the realm?

There's not many surprises in the reaction, although it's a bit strange seeing Jonathan Friedland and Boris Johnson on the same side of the fence.

What to make of it all? Well, Blair decided the terms of this inquiry and then upped the ante by saying he'd have to resign if Gilligan's allegations were proved to be true. Blair then offered Hoon as the sacrificial lamb and the script was supposed to be that the government and the BBC would take their raps on the knuckles with a resignation on either side and Alistair's smokescreen would have done it's job.

For reasons best known to himself, Hutton deviated from the script. Maybe he doesn't like fudges, maybe he just didn't have the bottle to go down in history as the Law Lord who brought down a government. Maybe he did a Denning. Maybe he's just too senile to have considered the evidence properly. We've all seen it, for crying out loud.

Whatever, I'm not sure the PM is best pleased with his overwhelming victory. If the lord hadn't fluffed his lines, Blair's enemies wouldn't be crying whitewash, stitch up and worse. And I don't really think he wants to go down in history as the Prime Minister who emasculated the most admired broadcasting institution in the world.