There do seem to be a number of problems with the Hutton report, without raising any war issues, whether it was or wasn't fixed and so on. The 6.07 broadcast by Gilligan was something like "My source toldme X and my source, who is Y, is in my opinion reliable". (My italics, but the reference to the source was certainly in the broadcast) Hutton has concluded that X and Y were both false but that whether it was said by 'the source' is unprovable by Gilligan's notes.

Much of the media seems to be claiming that Hutton found Gilligan's statement false: it did not, it found it unproven.

Gilligan made, I gather, a further 18 broadcasts on that day without repeating the particular offending words. One way of interpreting this is that Gilligan himself did not regard them as the main point at issue. Had he repeated the same allegation throughout the day I agree the Government would have needed to respond in some way, but as the offending remarks had apparently been dropped within an hour or two even by Gilligan, it is at least worth considering whether the Government's response was proportionate or even the main cause that the statement became a story in its own right. Hutton does not seem to have investigated this.

Finally, and perhaps most seriously, I wonder about the suggestion that Gilligan's editor should have checked the script before the broadcast. This appears pretty innocuious and even perhaps self-evident, but I find it very difficult to see how this fits in with a 24-hour news culture where speed of response is one of the critical issues. I can see such an approach meaning that all UK 24-hour news broadcasts end up with a culture where everyone needs to confirm all statements with their superiors with the delays that implies, whereas non-UK broadcasts would be following different rules. That could have a long-term effect on the UKs competitiveness in the field. (I do, of course, agree that accuracy of response is also an important criteria.)