Blair gets the finger from Dyke

Hell hath no fury like a BBC director-general scorned.

Greg Dyke was forced to resign after the Hutton report criticised the BBC's editorial standards. Dyke has since complained that he was stitched-up by Blair. But all we seem to hear from Dyke is 'me, me, me': an hour of prime-time television, a personal appearance at the Royal Festival Hall, and innumerable newspaper interviews, all concerned about how he was wronged by his erstwhile friends.

'I feel betrayed. We were taken to war on a false premise,' says Dyke in the documentary, apparently confusing his own fate than that of Iraq. In fact, he admits in the Guardian today that cultivating the Cult of Greg was pretty important to him. When he started at the Beeb, he spent time visiting all the local studios. 'I mean, no one had been to Norwich for 20 years...[t]hat's how you buy credibility. Sometimes it can be quite calculated.'

It all paid off when Greg cleared his desk and left the BBC to cheers and tears, making him feel like a 'mixture between a politician and Madonna'. No wonder BBC journalists were left open to accusations of self-importance over their reporting of Iraq - they got their cue from the top.

Loud and proud, Guardian, 20 September 2004

BBC: cut the crap, by Jennie Bristow