Thom Yorke calls the Hutton report a whitewash in the Guardian

Thom Yorke has written a comment piece for today's Guardian, “This theatre of the absurd”, calling Lord Hutton's report on the BBC a whitewash. The report, published on Wednesday, cleared the government over the death of the weapons scientist David Kelly. It criticised the BBC over Andrew Gilligan's report on the Today programme that the government had “sexed up” its case on Iraq's weapons. The BBC's chairman, Gavyn Davies, and its Director General, Greg Dyke, have both resigned.

A month ago Yorke guest-edited Today himself. He writes that the verdict will breed fear on the programme where there ought to be pride, and that he cannot see why Davies and Dyke had to go. When the Hutton report arrived this week, I expected Geoff Hoon to have to resign. I expected, at the very least, a grovelling apology from Tony Blair.²

Gilligan's report was made rather shakily at 6.07am, Yorke grants, but it is what public service broadcasting should be for. Alastair Campbell, in his account, turned on the BBC, his favourite soft target, to draw attention away from the case for war, when all people want to know is why Britain went to war against international law on weak, single-source intelligence.

In November, emailing NME against George Bush's state visit, Yorke said that with the Hutton inquiry still to report, Blair was on very thin ice. He tells us that he will be judged by his maker. Well, he certainly wasn't judged by Hutton, was he?²