Last year Richard Tait, head of the BBC’s Editorial Standards Committee was to chair an investigation into allegations of inaccuracy and bias by Jeremy Bowen. But Mr Tait had already proclaimed on air that he had complete confidence in Jeremy Bowen. So the outcome seemed a foregone conclusion.
One of the committee of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, Christine Chinkin, made no secret of her bias against Israel, yet she was considered fit for purpose and remained in her post.
But three wrongs don’t make a right, and I hope the oleaginous ‘uman rights lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith’s objections don’t overturn the appointment of Sir Peter Gibson to lead the inquiry into whether the UK has been complicit in the torture of terror suspects.
Kim Howells and Stafford-Smith, sounding alarmingly like Leslie Phillips, can be heard talking to John Humphrys here.
What? They’re accusing Clive of doing it because he’s trying to get his client Binyam Mohamed off! How very dare they!