More Mature Reflections

Abstract

At the Authority’s meeting Kirkpatrick reported that he had tried unsuccessfully to see the Home Secretary, who was Chairman of the Cabinet’s Home Affairs Committee and as such concerned with any Government action on the Pilkington Report. He had therefore written to Mr Butler and passed on the contents of his letter in an interview with the pmg, in which he had also expressed his anger at the tone of the Report. In his letter of 2 July to Butler he had said:

I completely repudiate the Pilkington Committee’s statements of alleged fact. In particular I repudiate the statement that the ita falls far behind the bbc in showing serious programmes in good evening hours… The Pilkington Report is loaded with prejudice and abounds in misrepresentations and distortion…. The Authority has been publicly attacked. In deference to the request of the Postmaster-General it has hitherto remained silent… it cannot be expected to do so much longer… ¹