Tony Blair's government looks increasingly vulnerable in the harsh glare of daylight, reports Alistair Alexander from London Lord Hutton's enquiry was greeted sceptically when it was announced immediately following the suicide of David Kelly on 18 July. Supporters of the war on Iraq saw it as an unnecessary intrusion into private grief. While those against the war -- who had long been clamouring for a much wider enquiry into the government's case for war -- lamented its narrow terms of reference. Few would dismiss the enquiry quite so readily now. Far from being the government stooge that many suspected, Lord Hutton has used his far-reaching powers to devastating effect. The enquiry has dragged the innermost workings of the British government into the harshly unfamiliar glare of daylight. And, as even the government's allies are forced to admit, it is not a pretty sight. Lord Hutton is certainly limited by his brief to concentrate solely on the "circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly". And the government's critics are right to say that the death of one man should not overshadow the deaths of thousands of Iraqis. But, however partial the enquiry's scope might be, it has two key areas of investigation which go to the very heart of Blair's administration. First, Lord Hutton needs to establish whether the government did indeed "transform" the September dossier from the intelligence assessments, as Kelly claimed. The finger of suspicion is pointed firmly at Alastair Campbell, Blair's all-powerful director of communications. As the dossier was, in effect, the government's case for war, any finding against the government on this point would shatter the government's already flimsy justification for military action. The enquiry has seen a procession of Blair's closest allies looking aghast at the mere thought of it. John Scarlett, head of the Joint Intelligence Committee and the government's most senior intelligence official, had "ownership" of the dossier, they claim in unison. And any suggestions from Downing Street were purely on matters of presentation. But a near-pathological obsession with presentation has always been this government's greatest weakness, to the extent that it can barely distinguish presentation from reality. And sure enough, a flurry of e-mails between Blair's most trusted lieutenants suggests that Alastair Campbell's role was far more involved than he admits. "Sorry to bombard on this point," he tells Scarlett in an e-mail submitted to the enquiry, "but I do worry that the nuclear section will become the main focus and as currently drafted is not in great shape." Clearly then, as this was one of dozens of e-mails from Campbell and others, any concept of ownership was little more than a flag of convenience. Of course none of this would matter if the dossier had been accurate. But as no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and look ever less likely to be found, the distinction between intelligence and propaganda could scarcely be more vital to the government's survival prospects. And it also explains Campbell's breathtaking ferocity in rebutting the BBC's allegations. The second area Lord Hutton must investigate is whether Kelly was driven to his death by the government's treatment of him following his admission as the BBC's anonymous source. After his name was leaked to the press, Kelly was hauled before MPs for a humiliatingly public interrogation. Here again Blair's inner circle is closing ranks to distance itself from the tragic consequences. Kelly was treated properly according to Ministry of Defence "internal procedures", his aides have repeatedly told the enquiry, and Downing Street was simply kept informed. And here again, e-mails submitted to the enquiry reveal a distinctly less sensitive side to Downing Street. One of Blair's spokesmen said in an e-mail: "We're in a game of chicken with the Beeb (the BBC). The only way they will shift is if they see the screw tightening." It looks increasingly clear that the game of chicken required Kelly to be used as bait; by outing him, they could prove the BBC had misquoted their source. As it happens, the enquiry's hearings strongly suggest that the BBC quoted Kelly accurately. Nevertheless, Downing Street feels that it was a Ministry of Defence decision and Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon should be the one to carry the can. As with the dossier itself, the process by which Kelly was named reveals the government's fixation with controlling the news agenda to the exclusion of all other considerations -- including, it would seem, Kelly's human fallibility. And Lord Hutton's enquiry reveals that even when spin appears to have led the government into an abyss all it can do is frantically try to spin its way out. Accusations of media manipulation, or spin, have dogged this government throughout its existence. Long before Iraq many Blair allies were urging the government to dispatch with spin to regain credibility with the public. But it is hard not to conclude that if this government's layers of spin were ever really peeled away, like an onion, there would be nothing left. Lord Hutton's main legacy on British politics is unlikely to be limited to the fate of the government, however. In the last few days over 9,000 highly sensitive documents that would normally remain secret for 30 years (for national security reasons, you understand), were published on the enquiry's Web site. For Britain's political culture, which regards public access to information as more of a privilege than a right, this amounts to an information revolution. And what's more the only security put at risk, as far as anyone can tell, is that of the government. Lord Hutton appears to be deliberately making an implicit link between the British state's control of information and this government's apparent abuse of that power; in an age of 24-hour multi-platform media, the former surely leads to the latter. The British press has evolved over generations to make the most of a meagre trickle of government information. And it is struggling to cope with the documentary torrent Lord Hutton has unleashed. But the media is quickly discovering that nearly drowning in information is infinitely preferable to a perpetual thirst; and they are unlikely to return willingly back to the days when innuendo and gossip were the closest they got to government strategy. The government still hopes that it can survive Lord Hutton's final report and maybe even stage a recovery. Surviving the final report is a distinct possibility, particularly as Blair has no rivals from within his Labour Party or beyond. But in this harsh new political landscape that Lord Hutton has created, a recovery sounds more like spin than substance.
