This is not going to be an application to work for the BBC but — hell, who cares? — I never really had the face for television.

Nor, it must be said, has Andrew Gilligan. Doubtless this is one reason why his allegations about Alastair Campbell “sexing up” an intelligence dossier were first broadcast on radio, and then elaborated in print. But, on grounds of both space and taste, we will ignore the details of his physiognomy. Instead, I want to examine the ugliness of the BBC itself over the past six weeks.

In today’s political climate, anyone suggesting that Campbell is not the Greatest Liar In The History Of The Whole World Ever gets branded as a new Labour lickspittle, crawling at the feet of Downing Street’s king of spin blah, blah, blah. I know a little about both Campbell and Gilligan. If it came down to a question of whom to trust, I would opt for the former — there you are, truth and beauty.

Yet this dispute is not about weighing the word of one man against that of another. But the foreign affairs committee yesterday found Gilligan to be “an unsatisfactory witness” who kept changing his story. Just about everyone who had any real responsibility for last September’s dossier on Iraq has denied Gilligan’s claim that Downing Street inserted, against the wishes of the intelligence services, unreliable information about Iraq’s ability to deploy WMD within 45 minutes.

Tony Blair and Jack Straw say that this allegation is untrue. “Huh,” says the BBC. After all, Westminster media “wisdom” has it that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary are liars too.

Well, what about the denial from John Scarlett? The chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, who consulted other spy chiefs, can find nothing to substantiate Gilligan’s claims. Hmmm, a bit tricky that. The BBC begins to move the goalposts, pointing out that other journalists have reported unease within the intelligence services. But it does not stand up the 45-minute allegation, which the BBC now claims was only given “undue prominence” — notice the absence of the word “inserted”.

Who was Gilligan’s source? Dr David Kelly, a government WMD expert who helped to draw up an historical section of the dossier, admits that they had a meeting at the Charing Cross Hotel where they discussed the 45-minute claim. Kelly says he cannot believe he was the “main source” and the foreign affairs select committee agreed with him after the least forensic questioning since last month’s interview on the BBC’S Today programme with the BBC’s head of news about why the BBC was so right.

But Gilligan has admitted that he only had one source. I will walk from John O’Groats to Land’s End if he met another WMD expert at “a Central London hotel” who helped to draft a background section of the dossier. And I will walk back if the BBC’s recent vow of silence about its source does not come from a slowly dawning realisation that it is wrong. If Kelly was his source, he was not credible, because he is not, as the BBC claimed, a senior member of the intelligence services.

There are legitimate questions about WMD but that does not justify the charges Gilligan has laid against the Government. The BBC will not admit that the allegations are false but nor does it still insist that the story was correct — merely that it has the right to broadcast what it wants. Greg Dyke, the BBC Director-General, has persuaded his governing board that a high principle of independence is at stake and an apology would cede editorial control to No 10.

This is utter rubbish. On this issue the BBC does not stand for principle but Blundering Bombastic Cynicism. Is the corporation becoming the Blair Baiting Campaign or is it a case of Blinkered Bosses Cornered? Maybe both. Bye Bye Credibility.

The author is Assistant Editor of The Times