BBC, Blair call truce as heads roll

BBC Director General Greg Dyke resigned after crisis talks with the public broadcaster’s board of governors over what is being called the gravest crisis in its 82-year history. Gavyn Davies, BBC chairman, quit on Wednesday.

‘‘I hope that a line can now be drawn under this whole episode,’’ Dyke told reporters outside the BBC’s head office. The BBC later bowed to the government’s demands for an unreserved apology over the affair, which Blair accepted. ‘‘It allows us to draw a line and move on, the BBC to get on with their job and the government to get on with ours,’’ he said.

Blair had earlier sought to close off the most perilous period of his six-year premiership with a speech on public services, promising no let-up in the reforms many of his supporters oppose. His foes, many commentators and large parts of the public were staggered at the scale of his let-off by Hutton compared with the censure of the BBC.

Hutton’s report had the potential to sink Blair had he been directly blamed for naming Kelly as the BBC’s source. Instead, Hutton slammed the BBC’s management procedures as ‘‘defective’’.

Davies, in his resignation letter, questioned Hutton’s conclusions while the nation’s press had a field day. One newspaper splashed a picture of a grinning Blair on its front page with a halo over him and the headline ‘‘Saint Tony’’. Another left its front page largely blank save for the question ‘‘Whitewash?’’ in red letters.

Hutton’s report came a day after Blair had narrowly averted parliamentary defeat on a key Bill, seeing him through a two-day period that had threatened his political future.

The Prime Minister had been staring at a humiliating defeat in Tuesday’s vote on education reform but just scraped through, his majority of 161 slashed to just five votes.

Following the narrow win, Labour party legislators warned Blair against stretching their loyalty to such limits again.

‘‘There are lessons to be learned, bridges to be built but no wavering in our political purpose,’’ Blair said on Thursday. He is not out of the woods yet on Iraq. Hutton said the intelligence published on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction — the primary reason Blair gave for war — had been consistent with what was known at the time. But Blair’s critics were quick to return to the question of the whereabouts of those weapons, which have yet to be found.