'The Independent calls it a "whitewash?" (though note the all-important question mark). A Guardian columnist went with "political smokescreen" and the editorial accused it of naivety. Dyke himself said, "I don't accept all of the report."'

Steve Tomkins offers his thoughts about the aftermath of last week's report from the Hutton Inquiry

Many questioned Tony Blair's wisdom in going to war, but there can be no doubt of the result: the BBC is defeated and Greg Dyke has been toppled.

For months it seems we have been waiting for Lord Hutton to let us know the final decisive verdict on the case of New Labour versus Auntie. And yet now that it comes, suddenly we are reminded that Hutton is only one man - appointed by the government - and that he can be as wrong as anyone else.

The Independent calls it a "whitewash?" (though note the all-important question mark). A Guardian columnist went with "political smokescreen" and the editorial accused it of naivety. Dyke himself said, "I don't accept all of the report." (If you think my research extends to buying the Daily Mail, you can do your own.)

Where's my closure? Heads have rolled, apologies been accepted, lines drawn, but still it goes on. Ah well, I suppose the media are more likely to look for people who'll question the report than to say "That's that then. What shall we talk about now?"

And so we're still left with the question of whom we trust, Blair or Beeb, media or politicians?

Poll

A new ICM poll says neither. Asked whom they trusted more to tell the truth, 31% went for the BBC, 10% for the government, 49% for neither and 7% for both. It's an illiterate question, because you can't trust 'both' more than each other, but I guess we get the message: a plague on both their houses.

We see reporters as politically biased, driven by their personal interests and distorting facts for the sake of the story, while politicians bow to big business and line their pockets behind a curtain of propaganda, massaging information and refusing to answer a straight question.

Politicians and media are two great superpowers in our society, in a complex interdependent relationship of hostility and co-operation. The media provide politicians' main means of communicating with the electorate, while politics provides the media's main source of material.

The media complain of spin while the government complain of misrepresentation. Politicians protest at interviewers not letting them speak while interviewers complain that they won't answer the question.

How are we supposed to judge between the media and the government when the media are the eyes with which we see the government?

Would you trust a government whose minister without portfolio said in 2000, "Of course we want to use the media, but the media will be our tools, our servants"? That will depend on whether you trust The Spectator's quotation, I suppose.

Propaganda

In judging between the two sides, first we have to consider that political parties are openly and unashamedly devoted to propaganda - rubbishing the opposition, commending themselves, putting the most useful spin on facts and figures, doing everything in their power to be in power.

Remember September 11 being a good day for burying bad news? This is not because politicians are all self-serving cynics necessarily, but because the very nature of modern politics dictates that one cannot survive by being an impartial spokesperson for the truth, but only by successfully marketing oneself.

So of course we don't trust the government to tell us the truth. If they did, we wouldn't vote for them.

Whether the Blair government goes beyond this into outright deception of the public is another matter. The one public enquiry into such a question has resoundingly acquitted them. I'll leave it to the conspiracy theorists to peer into the shadows behind that.

Can we trust the media any better? Of course we can - depending on which bit of it we listen to. There is, obviously, a sliding scale of reliability in the media, with the entire tabloid press, in the broadest sense, in an appalling heap of misinformation and manipulation at the bottom, and broadcast news programmes like Today at the top.

And at that peak you have reporters who stake their professional reputation on accuracy and interviewers who stake theirs on an even-handed grilling of politicians of every colour. Does any institution do a better job of holding the government accountable to the people?

Honest

This isn't to say that broadcast journalists are better and more honest people than politicians, just that the job we give them is to be impartial in the same way that the job we give MPs is to be one-sided. They do not fulfil the job perfectly of course, but the seismic repercussions of an unfounded allegation by one reporter remind you how magisterially reliable the BBC's news coverage generally is.

If that seems a bit OTT or naive, take Wednesday's front-page headline on BBCi: "Hutton castigates BBC". Can you in your wildest dreams imagine the Times being so candid in the same position? Apply the same test to the Express or the Sun, and you'll wake from your wildest dreams wetting yourself laughing, which is embarrassing at your age, so don't try it.

So to the 49% "neither", get a sense of proportion. To the 10% "the government", get your heads read. To the 7% "both" get an education. To the 31% "the BBC", you're right, well done.

How's that for impartiality?