Blair denies authorising leak of Kelly name

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday denied authorising the identification of David Kelly as the source for the BBC story that Downing Street "sexed up" the dossier on Iraq's weapons.

Speaking on a flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong, Mr Blair said: "I did not authorise the leaking of the name of David Kelly."

Mr Blair was speaking as pressure mounted on his Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon over the naming of the weapons expert as the Government mole behind the allegation.

It was reported that Mr Hoon personally authorised the media strategy that led to Dr Kelly being named as the prime source for Andrew Gilligan's controversial story.

On board his plane to Hong Kong for the latest leg of his diplomatic mission, Mr Blair said he "emphatically" did not authorise the leak.

But he said the confirmation of Dr Kelly's name was a different matter, adding that the judicial inquiry he had set up would look at all the facts.

Quizzed on why the Government confirmed Dr Kelly's identity, he replied: "That's a completely different matter once the name is out there. The inquiry can look at these things."

Dr Kelly apparently committed suicide last week after he had been publicly identified and subjected to an intense grilling by the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.

After his death the BBC confirmed that Dr Kelly had been its source for the report on the Today programme on May 29.

The Ministry of Defence press office adopted a policy of refusing to name Dr Kelly directly but officials said they would confirm his identity if journalists could come up with the scientist's name.

This confirmation strategy was sanctioned by Mr Hoon and the top official in the MoD, permanent secretary Kevin Tebbit, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The MoD refused to comment on the issue.

Asked why he had authorised the naming of Dr Kelly, the Prime Minister told reporters travelling with him on his chartered British Airways 777 jet: "That's completely untrue."

Mr Blair went on: "My starting point going into the inquiry is I believe we have acted properly throughout. There are a whole lot of questions that the inquiry will ask and we will answer."

It also emerged that the BBC's board of governors could hold an early meeting to discuss the implications of Dr Kelly's death.

The governors did not know the name of the source and did not ask for it when they were examining the controversy at a meeting earlier this month because they would not have been told, a BBC spokesman said yesterday.

One governor told The Times: "I would agree that the governors need to be convinced that they had all the facts that they needed when they made the statement supporting Andrew Gilligan and his story."

Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith reiterated his call for the Hutton Inquiry into Dr Kelly's death to have the "widest possible terms".

"I think what the tragedy of the death of Dr Kelly has told us is that in part the political process is slightly in the dock here," he told GMTV.

According to an ICM poll for The Guardian which was published yesterday, Mr Blair's approval rating, which has been on a downward turn since the end of the Iraq war, plunged a further four points from last month to minus 17.