“Blood on your hands” was unethical: the editor made me do it

Just wanted to record this from two days ago. Jonathan Oliver, who asked Tony Blair if he had “blood on your hands” at the end of a news conference in Tokyo (right) just after David Kelly, the UN weapons inspector, killed himself, has explained himself:

The Mail on Sunday was very keen that Tony Blair, who was then travelling, was put on the spot. I was told by the editor that the normal ethics or rules of engagement of the parliamentary lobby no longer applied and I had to do whatever it took.

So it was unethical and the fault of the editor, Peter Wright.

Thanks to PRWeek for clearing that up, eight years later.

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• BlairSupporter

  I COULD say the war was being launched anyway (by the USA) due to the UN’s failure over a dozen years to stand up for its own resolutions. I COULD say – but why bother. The deaf & blind don’t care.

• petersimplex

  Why was Blair so uneasy, so jumpy when interviewed after Cameron shut down any possibility of an Inquest into Kelly’s death in June???   This isn’t going to go away,you know.  If we wired them all up to lie detectors, Blair, Hoon, Hutton,the top brass of the Thames Valley Police even the family themselves, I am sure we would get some very unusual answers to  to some pertinent probing (not found at the Hutton Inquiry sham concerning itself with the complete irrelevance of 45 minute claims, a smokescreen).  No wonder Governments are so keen to keep witnesses away anything which requires evidence under  oath, viz an inquest at the Coroner’s Court.

• petersimplex

  If Doctor Kelly committed suicide, and the case was effectively closed the next day, Saturday 19 July 2003 – the police were not looking for anyone else – why was an incident room of the Thames Valley Police Serious Crime Unit set up at Long Hanborough under Detective Chief Inspector Alan Young?? What was the Serious Crime being investigated? It surely wasn’t an alleged self-administered  co-proxamol overdose with associated wrist cutting with a blunt penknife (unless someone other than Dr Kelly had done it) Why wasn’t Alan Young called to the Hutton Inquiry?  If Dr Kelly so obviously committed suicide, why were cars at his house forensically searched?  Why was wallpaper stripped from his house?  Why were Special Branch involved?  Funny old suicide.  

• petersimplex

  Notice how Mr Dingemans at the Hutton Inquiry tries to put words into Susan Watts’ mouth:
  “And to the extent that he was the person who wrote the letter of 30th June to his line manager, saying: look, I recognise some aspects of this as being words I would use, in particular the 30 per cent probability; if he was an employee who was, as you put it, in a difficult  position, it seems extraordinary to have volunteered the letter.”

  In fact the letter of 30 June makes no mention of the 30 per cent probability! (MOD/1/0019-22)

  Much more interesting is Ms Watts when she gets onto the fake mobile weapons laboratories:“7th May, he was 90 per cent confident that they were as the Americans were describing them, but by the 12th his confidence level had fallen to around 40 to 50 per cent.”  i.e. Kelly had twigged that they were fakes and he must be kept out of Iraq from now on…and the problem then was what to do with him.  Some people obviously had a very good idea of dealing with the problem.  More like Kelly had  zero per cent confidence.

• Dr_Drug

  It’s interesting you quote the BBC for coroboration, because it’s a bit like looking to the accused (with previous form) to supply an alibi.

  Andrew Gilligan, maintained that he took notes “on his Palm Pilot,” but a colleague of Dr Kelly, Olivia Bosch, told the enquiry that Dr Kelly had said that Mr Gilligan had no Palm Pilot. Subsequent newspaper reports said that Mr Gilligan had lost the Palm Pilot on which he made these notes.

  But no matter. You consipiracy theorists are a bit like Finbarr Sauders from Viz. Seeing something out of nothing, but missing the blatant.

• Jake_K

  Eh?  Drink much while you’ve been away?

• petersimplex

  So why do you believe Olivia Bosch?  The only person who seems to be telling the truth in this whole charade is Susan Watts. Oh, and the two paramedics who attended a body at Harrowdown Hill, identity unknown.   The only thing I am seeing is that there was no suicide by Dr Kelly. Everything else is possible.

• BlairSupporter

  As is known to my friends, I get a hangover before I down a third drink. Don’t need the stuff, in fact. Not a saint. I have another addiction.

• LancashreLad

  “If the body had been moved, then why, by whom and for what purpose”

  Dominic Grieve, 9th June 2011, House of Commons

  Good questions Mr Grieve but just why have you prevented the Coroner from finding the answers?

  Grieve for Justice

• http://pulse.yahoo.com/_SE3NY3NGMMD7WDORL22GD5BMMI greatwhite

  Yes this is true. It is also true to state that Israel secretly developed illegal WMD’s i.e. nuclear weapons, and is equally aggressive towards its neighbours. Yet there has been no likelihood of a preemptive war against that country, which can only be described as a double standard. There is no case for a preemptive war against a sovereign state for countries that wish to be members of the United Nations.

  Of course, the UN is based in the US, who, for all intents and purposes, considers it as their own, to manipulate in whatever way they see fit. No wonder they do not wish to recognise the ICC.