The UK has a streak running through it that makes me wonder how sane we are. I've mentioned Charles Ingrams before: he's the former army Major who was found guilty of attempting to defraud London Weekend Television out of £1 million by cheating on their Who wants to be a millionaire programme: GUILTY in a court of law. Ingrams was then found to have attempted to defraud an insurance company out of £30,000 I think it was. GUILTY of attempted fraud. In this week's Radio Times I see that Ingrams is being flown out to Australia to appear as a "celebrity" in the ITV programme I'm a celebrity get me out of here. I also understand he will receive £25,000 by way of a fee. Then there is the British student who told security officials at Miami Airport that she had a bomb in her back pack: she said this three times so they whisked her off to jail and kept her there until someone posted bail of £2,700 on her behalf: a businessman I think. This stupid young woman's father went on television to bleat that her treatment was unfair and an over reaction but said his daughter was an immature young girl. Once she had been released the woman herself appeared and spoke with a fake American accent! Then I heard that a British Newspaper has paid her an amount of money to cover her air fare and other expenses ... in return for exclusive story no doubt. I ask: why are these reprehensible people given such status? Ingrams is a fraud and a cheat and now we call him a celebrity. Ronnie Biggs was a thief and complicit in a murder yet people treat him as just a cheeky chappie. Jeffrey Archer was guilty of contempt of court but he is still feted as a lovable rogue. The moral of the story? Get yourself thrown in jail or try to defraud someone out of huge amount of money and you too could become a celeb. DW

I watched the Panorama progamme on Wednesday night about the Hutton enquiry and whilst I thought it wasn't a bad programme I did wonder why they had made and aired it one week prior to the publication of Huton's report. I, along with others, wrote to Panorama with my views and they published part of what I said here. Scroll down to find my incisive comments! What worries me far more than anything the programme said about anything was the aftermath: how the programme has been treated by the media. Here's an example. On this page they say His [David Kelly's] view was at odds with the claim in the government's Iraq dossier that "military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes and to support this assertion they report, later on, Describing Iraq's weapons, Dr Kelly told Panorama: "Even if they're not actually filled and deployed today, the capability exists to get them filled and deployed within a matter of days and weeks. Notice what they have missed out. Kelly started by saying that he agreed that Iraq posed an immediate threat: no doubt, no equivocation, Iraq posed an immediate threat. What journalists have highlighted. however, is what he then said: "Even if they're not actually filled and deployed today ..." Note the Even if qualifier. Isn't it as plain as the nose on your face? There is then this piece of nonsense from the above page Originally, the penultimate draft of the Iraq dossier had also suggested Saddam Hussein was likely to use WMD only in self defence. However, the Hutton Inquiry was told that a paragraph was re-written at the request of Mr Blair's Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, who e-mailed Alastair Campbell and others in Number 10 that it could be "a bit of a problem. It is true that a draft of the dossier did say that if under threat Iraq is likely to use its WMD and they did change the wording to make the phrase more direct. However, what the BBC has reported is tantamount to a lie: I think they have grossly misrperesented what happened. Overall, I thought the programme was interesting and both Andrew Gilligan and Greg Dyke came out of it astonishingly badly: I never trusted Gilligan to be honest and now I think Dyke should resign. Panorama made a relatively impartial programme that should, however, have been aimed at a post Hutton scenario rather than a pre Hutton scenario. DW