READING SOME OF the Lord Hutton revisionists, I’m reminded of those Private Eye mock apologies: “The British media would like to apologise for suggesting that Lord Hutton was a distinguished law lord beholden to no one, who could be relied on to uncover the truth. We now accept that he is, in fact, a fully paid-up member of the Establishment handpicked to convict the BBC and let the Government off scot-free.”

Those who praised the judge cannot now seek to bury him. Alastair Campbell is right: this won’t do, though it is tempting, highly tempting. Lord Hutton did, after all, spoil our fun. We’d set up camp opposite the Commons to await the latest victims of the battle between the Beeb and Downing Street. Heads did roll but not in the right direction. We’d said that this would be Tony Blair’s most difficult day. It turned out to be a stroll in the park. We’d said Michael Howard would be at his most threatening. The day merely exposed his impotence.

Why were we so wrong? Because Geoff Hoon was right. That’s the first apology I offer in this week of apologies. Mr Hoon told me — and anyone else who’d listen — that we’d all misundertood Lord Hutton. The judge wouldn’t care about his witness box performance even if the judge agreed with those who said it was shifty, arrogant and lacking in contrition. The judge was, Mr Hoon insisted, just that — a judge. His lordship would decide between truth and falsehood, not award marks for star quality.

Remember that as well as being Defence Secretary, Mr Hoon is a lawyer. His analysis is, I believe, the only plausible explanation for Lord Hutton’s conclusions. The judge essentially reduced his remit to two points on which he was determined to deliver guilty or not guilty verdicts. First, was Andrew Gilligan’s report true? Gilligan and his bosses confessed in court that he’d made mistakes, so the judge convicted the lot of them. Secondly, could David Kelly’s anonymity have been preserved? Lord Hutton’s answer — after some wavering — was no. So, the Government was innocent. Simple really. All rise!

WHILE WE’RE ON apologies, should Michael Howard have made one instead of brazening it out? The prevailing wisdom in Westminster is that he would have “looked big” if he’d graciously backed down. Perched high in the Commons press gallery, I watched as the Tory leader realised that Lord Hutton had walked off with all his ammunition. His side looked on, ashen and silent. This wasn’t the assassination they’d been promised. It was their own hired gun who was wounded. But what could he have said? To apologise would have looked supine. That’s why, of course, Blair demanded one. The Tories may have overreached themselves with their incantation that “you can’t trust a word Blair says”.

I HAVE ONE last apology. When Labour’s whips said they were a few MPs short of winning the tuition fees vote, I assumed this was their usual tactic of feeding gloomy predictions to the media to scare backbenchers into line. I will never doubt them again.

Bizarrely, the vote was almost lost, but due to an indulgent row between Blairites and Brownites over who deserved the credit for quelling the rebellion. When Nick “friend of Gordon” Brown switched sides on the road to Damascus, he justified his conversion by the “concessions” he’d won. Some in the Chancellor’s camp phoned round to explain that these concessions had been secured after frantic calls between Messrs Blair, Brown, Prescott and Blunkett, and that the votes of 30 other rebels had been secured. Minutes later, Downing Street briefed that there had been no new concessions. Nick Brown, it was whispered, was just looking for an excuse to justify his climbdown and would only bring one or two other rebels with him.

A LABOUR SPLIT isn’t enough to cheer up the Tories. One told me that Hutton was their “Basildon moment” — when they realised that they faced five more years in opposition. No, there’s hope, said another, the public still sits for hours on trains going nowhere.

THERE’S ALSO NO comforting old friends at the BBC, but I proffer a warning on internecine wars over journalistic standards. As one who joined the corporation just after Mrs Thatcher’s Militant Tendency claimed the scalp of a Director General, I saw Birtists fight the old guard in a battle reminiscent of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. The People’s Front of Judaea fought to the death with the Popular Judaean People’s Front as their mutual enemies looked on and laughed.

The author is political editor of ITV News

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