'I am doing everything I can' - apart from watching defamatory programmes before they are broadcast, that is.

This screen grab shows the BBC's problem regarding the Lord McAlpine defamation

George Entwistle is doing everything he can but George Entwistle also admits that he didn't see the Newsnight report, which led to Lord McAlpine being wrongly implicated in child sexual abuse, before it was broadcast. Somewhat too late George Entwistle says that the Newsnight film should not have been broadcast.

What gives me hope is the news that Lord McAlpine is seriously considering  taking legal action against the BBC:

'"Then we have to look at Newsnight and... the way in which they behaved, the way they trailed, they made it obvious who it was, or who they alleged it was by referring people to the internet."'

What happened seems fairly clear to me; the BBC and its Labour allies saw a way of taking attention away from the Jimmy Saville story and placing the spotlight onto the hated Tory party. Tom Watson raised the matter in the House of Commons during PMQs on 24 October:

"Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab): The evidence file used to convict paedophile Peter Righton, if it still exists, contains clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring. One of its members boasts of his links to a senior aide of a former Prime Minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad. The leads were not followed up, but if the file still exists I want to ensure that the Metropolitan police secure the evidence, re-examine it and investigate clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No. 10."

The BBC took the story forward with its Newsnight programme, a programme that cast serious aspersions without every even showing the alleged victim any photos of the alleged culprit. Basic journalism you'd have thought, but not at the BBC.

When even The New Statesman and The Guardian can spot the problems with Tom Watson and the BBC's coverage, you know that the left have a problem.

John Redwood has a pretty good feel for the BBC/Labour motives:

'Some  Conservatives feel particularly unhappy about the way this has been treated. Of course the treatment of the wrongly accused is the worst feature, but they are not happy that in a fairly unsuccessful attempt to disguise his name the Conservative party was accused of harbouring a paedophile in the Thatcher era. Some Conservatives will ask why the unnamed person had to be described in this way. Would the BBC have said a senior figure of the Callaghan or Wilson era, if the dates had been different, or were they as often seems the case, out to attack Margaret Thatcher?  Would they have constantly repeated the word Labour, if the senior figure had been from that party, or sufficed themselves with a general word like politician? Why, in the North Wales abuse cases, did the BBC not constantly refer also to Clwyd Council, the  Council responsible for the childrens’   homes? Clwyd was certainly not a Conservative Council. Why did  they not add the Labour party label to a very nasty set of incidents if they thought the fact that it was a national Conservative government mattered? Why didn’t the unpublished Clwyd report into the abuse crisis become a matter of interest, as well as the wide  ranging enquiry ordered and published by Conservative Ministers?'

What is also interesting is that Tom Watson asked another question in the House of Commons recently,

Hansard 29 October:
'Mr Watson: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many files relating to the premiership of Sir Edward Heath (a) are retained by Government Departments and (b) have been transferred to the National Archives but have not yet been released under the 30 Year Rule. [124917]'

Anything you'd like to add Mr Watson?