Gavyn Davies

From : Gavyn Davies

Sent: 08 July 2003 09 04
To: 'an?ela sark!s'
Subject : RE Statement following Governors' meting

thanks Angela

-----Original Message-----
From: angela .sarkis [me ilto:angela .sark!s@btopenworld .com)
Sent: 07 July 2003 16 :27
To: Gavyn Davies
Subject ; Re: Statement following Governors' meting

Hello Gavyn

Many thanks for your encouraging emai; and even more for your chairmanship of yesterday's meeting
I certainly felt we had an open and honest discussion and arrived at the right outcome

best wishes

Anaela

----- Original Message ----

From : Ga_vyn DaviAs
To: -ry-der@Farliament uk , zzFabian Morlds-PRIVATE , trene adams@weir_co Jk ,
gji50 dial igex com , ran !t s uKoniine co uk , hoqgs arl!ament uk, dgleeson2mLg leeson com ,
zzDerno : Gleeson , zzDame Pauline Nevlie-Jones , Ruth Deech-INTERNET ;
angela_sarki;@bt!nternet com , Simqn Milnzr_SEC , Ca;herine East, Helen Tunley ,
r m jgnes@bangor ac uk
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2003 12 27 PM
Subject: Statement following Governors' meting

Dear Governors

I attach a clean copy of the Statement which I issued on the Board's behalf last nigh- .

I was aware during the meeting that I may have been rushing The discussion more -han usual,
because there was a hard deadline around 9pm . If we had missed this deadline, the Governors'
conclusions would have missed the morning papers completely, and would then have been
swamped by The news about the FAC reporT on Monday. This explains why it was so Important
to get the statement agreed quickly in our final meeting. (Thanks to ?aul!ne s eagle eye, we
narrowly avoided the cardinal error of writing the mistaken words "allegations made by Andrew
Gilligan" in the final draft; in the end, it correctly said "allegations reported by Andrew
Gilligan" '

Chairing the meeting, I wes very impressed by the se-;ousness and Toughness displayed by -he
Governors My view !s thc- we demor.strated -hot The Board of Governors is noT a body wh ch
can be easily bullied, either by pol~ticians or The management. I am sure that we will benefit
from demonstrating This in the lono run, ever, if we get some of the famil ar flak in the
immediate future . .

There were two traps which we could have falien into on Sunday -- ccv!ng !n to No 10, or caving
in to the executive I strongly believe that we did neither

21/07/2003
 I asked someone who has worked for the 85C how other reguiators would have reacted to
having to rule on The Campbell allegations, if Ofcom were ever to get responsibility for BBC
importality . He said simply : "In my experience, they would run a mile."

As I wriTe this e-mail, the FAC report has just been published Given that the key conclusion,
"clearing" Alastair Campbell, survived only on the casting vote of the chair, and much of the
rest of the report was highly critical of Mr Campbell's role, i- looks as though the BBC has
emerged intacT from the report, Though some will say that IT is still very messy . L hope,
perhaps optimistically, that this may give us a charice to move on to other matters .

Alastair Campbell and Jack Straw have both now withdrawn their general claims that the BBC
was systemically biased during the war. This is a major step forward, and a victory for the
Governors, since this would not have happened without our intervention . It also suggests there
may be a willingness to de-escalate the overall row with the BBC But the government is still
adamant that the Gilligan report, m its specific allegation, was plain wrong, and have - very
sensibly from their point of view - noted -ha-, the Governors did not substantiate the accuracy
of this report Richard Sambrook has smd in public 'hot the government and BBC News may
have to "agree to disagree" on th :s, Since there is nothing much more to be said on this until
the intelligence committee reports m Sep ;ember, the row may begin to move off the front
pages.

Thank you once again for the solidity displayed yesterday .

Best wishes

Gavyn

BBCi at hL-- ://wo;w .bbc .co .uk/

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