I have yet to meet a single person in Westminster, other than two of the five BBC employees to whom I have spoken in recent days, who is not clear in their own mind what happened when Andrew Gilligan met David Kelly. Journalists, politicians, officials, advisers et al; they all say the same thing:

As has been pointed out repeatedly, it is inconceivable that Dr Kelly was not the source. The idea that Gilligan met two intelligence officials in central London hotels who had contributed background work work to the dossier is preposterous. Clearly, Dr Kelly was the source.

But. It also seems clear that Dr Kelly did not realise that he was the source, since what Gilligan reported appears not to have been quite the same things that he was told by Dr Kelly. There seems indeed to have been 'sexing up', but by Gilligan rather than Alastair Campbell.

The BBC managers know full well now what happened, and are thus even more determined to tough it out, to cover their own backs in allowing Gilligan to go on air with his false story.

And although Downing Street did, with the hindsight of Dr Kelly's death, make a terrible mistake in putting his name out as the source, the real culprits are Andrew Gilligan and Richard Sambrook for, first, running a false story and then compounding the error by obfuscating and refusing to admit error.

That, as I say, is the view of every single person I have met in recent days in Westminster, including three BBC employees (but exclusing two others).

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