Watched Dateline London yesterday afternoon, where this topic was discussed. One member of the panel was Julie Toynbee, ex-BBC employee and now correspondent for the Guardian. She came up with a number of very interesting points:

- The BBC as a government sponsored organisation is (or should be) constrained to factual, non-biased, reporting of events.

- It has become increasingly the case that BBC Reporters work for other media outlets - In Gilligan's case the Mail and Spectator. Julie Toynbee left the BBC to work for the Guardian because she could not resolve what she saw as a conflict of interest with regard to working for both simultaneously. Mr Gilligan obviously saw no such conflict of interest.

- The whole WMD topic and the evaluation, spin, hype, or whatever term you wish to describe it was seized upon by the UK press, which is predominantly anti-government, and reported upon and used to damage the current UK Government.

- Andrew Gilligan held meetings and interviews with Dr. David Kelly wearing his BBC Reporters "hat". Dr Kelly agreed to these interviews solely to ensure that the BBC's reporting of the issue was factually correct. Andrew Gilligan in his BBC reports respected Dr. Kelly's right to anonimity and there was no way that Dr. Kelly could have been identified on the strength of the BBC's reporting.

- Two days later, however, Andrew Gilligan, writing as a "Mail" reporter, uses the same interview material in such a way as to make it possible for anyone who knew Dr. Kelly, knew is work, or, who worked with him, to easily identify the source as Dr. Kelly. That is what prompted Dr. Kelly to come forward to his employers and clearly state that he thought he might be the source.

Had the BBC then had the guts to declare that Dr. Kelly was their source and handed over the interview notes instead of standing on their line of protecting our sources confidentiality (which their own reporter had blown asunder) - It could have easily been established who was altering, or putting spin on what Dr.Kelly had stated. I believe that one result may well have been that Dr.Kelly might have lost his job, but I also believe that the pressures, and media interst on him would have been less and that he might still be alive.

As a result of the forthcoming independent judicial review I do not think that the BBC or Andrew Gilligan are going to come out of it too well.