British Officials Support Barring BBC News Report

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/world/europe/04cnd-britain.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

British Officials Support Barring BBC News Report


By ALAN COWELL
Published: March 4, 2007

LONDON, March 4 — Senior government officials rallied today to support a High Court ruling forbidding the BBC, Britain’s public service broadcaster, from reporting news about a campaign finance scandal under investigation by the police.

But the BBC nudged its reporting of the proscribed story a little further forward, saying it related to an e-mail between two close confidants of Prime Minister Tony Blair. The details of the e-mail, the BBC said on its Web site, “could have been central to the investigation into an alleged Downing Street cover-up” over the financing scandal.

For the past year, the police have been investigating accusations by Welsh and Scottish parliamentary legislators that major political parties traded seats in the prestigious House of Lords for donations and loans. The accusations have focused most recently on Mr. Blair’s Labor Party as it sought to raise money to fight the 2005 general election, which it won with a reduced majority.

More recently, however, the police inquiry has shifted to embrace suspicions that some figures in Mr. Blair’s entourage may, in British legal parlance, have sought to pervert the course of justice, meaning a cover-up.

On Friday, Britain’s attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, applied to the High Court to prevent the BBC from broadcasting its contentious news report, saying police investigators believed their inquiry would be jeopardized if the news was made public.

The BBC argued that its report concerned a “legitimate matter of public interest.”

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[LiberalFighter]

1. Hmm.. British Labor Party wants to cover up a cover up

[Monkeyman]

2. Bush opps Brits Cover up