VIDEO: The inside story of the ‘sexed-up’ dossier, Hutton and the BBC

The Hutton Report in 2004 created today’s BBC. It cost the corporation its Chairman and Director General and ushered in an age of self-doubt and caution. It was also the end of the most extraordinary experiment in news management Britain has ever seen, the decade of Alastair Campbell – the Blair courtier who delivered new Labour’s mission to ‘create the truth’. But Lord Hutton condemned the BBC and its journalism without hearing a single word from the man who put the ‘sexed-up dossier’ story on air – Today editor Kevin Marsh. Had he done so his conclusions would have been very different. Kevin tells his story in Stumbling Over Truth, and we spoke to him about his regret over the death of Dr David Kelly, how he believes Lord Hutton failed in his inquiry, and a rather interesting conversation with the head of British Intelligence, which convinced him that even they didn't believe that Iraq was the threat it had been made out to be.

Watch the video here.

Stumbling Over Truth is an important book for anyone who wants to understand the toe-to-toe confrontations between Tony Blair’s government and the BBC, and the fight to keep BBC journalism independent in the face of unprecedented government pressure.