[A-List] UK state: more background on Hutton

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Private Eye

No. 1097, 9 - 22 January 2004

The honours' list includes an OBE for Anne Sloman, who stepped down last
month as the BBC's chief political adviser. Totally sidelined by Greg Dyke
during the Hutton inquiry, she has nonetheless had her moments of glory.

It was she who told Today editor Rod Liddle that the troublesome eurosceptic
Lord Pearson was "quite mad" in an effort to keep dissenting voices off the
airwaves. It was also Sloman who, in 2000, spared the Blairites some
embarrassment by banning the BBC from asking London Labour party
constituency chairmen whether Frank Dobson should stand down as the party's
mayoral candidate.

And, of course, it was Anne Sloman who issued the notorious Stalinist edict
ordering that "in no circumstances whatsoever should the allegations about
the private life of Peter Mandelson be repeated or referred to in any
broadcast" -- thus seeking to ban BBC hacks from reporting what was already
in the public domain following Mandy's "outing" on Newsnight in November
1998.

While policing BBC news output, Sloman was actually working for the Beeb's
policy planning department, which exists entirely to smooth relations
between the corporation and the government. How fitting, then, that she
identifies her fight for "independence and impartiality" as the reason for
her honour.