Dyke considers legal fight

Former BBC director-general Greg Dyke is planning a legal challenge to the Hutton report, it emerged today.

Mr Dyke is to hire independent lawyers to see if there are grounds to contest the report which forced him out of his job last week.

Lord Hutton's findings against the BBC - in a report which cleared the Government - sparked the corporation's biggest crisis for decades.

Mr Dyke also disclosed that he was forced out by the BBC's board of governors, which refused to back his stance on the law lord's findings.

Last week the corporation's lawyers dissected the Hutton report and are understood to have found that it could be challenged under the law. Some legal experts believe the peer misunderstood the principle of freedom of expression in the Human Rights Act.

Mr Dyke has labelled the report "unbalanced" and "unfair" and does not want to go without a fightback.

One report today claimed former BBC chairman Gavyn Davies, who also resigned over Hutton, is helping Mr Dyke with the cost of legal bills run up by any challenge. The former director-general is understood to be particularly angry over Lord Hutton's apparent disregard of the mass of evidence of "bullying" tactics used by Alastair Campbell.

The former Downing Street communications chief bombarded the BBC with letters and faxes over its stance on the Iraq war - not just confining himself to Andrew Gilligan's controversial reports on Radio 4's Today programme.

Mr Dyke has released the text of a letter he wrote to Tony Blair in March in which he accused the Government of systematic bullying and intimidation over the conflict.

He said: "What Alastair Campbell was clearly trying to do was intimidate the BBC so that we reported what he wanted us to report as opposed to what we wanted to report."

Mr Dyke said the BBC had to resist that pressure. "The moment the BBC starts kowtowing to government, you might as well close it down."

He said the Government was entitled to try to pressure the BBC but the corporation was equally justified in telling it "where to get off ".

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell tried to head off claims of government interference by declaring that the search for a new BBC chairman would be overseen by a new panel to guarantee its independence.

This will be made up of politicians from all three main parties and led by Dame Rennie Fritchie, the commissioner for public appointments.

Ministers could try to rebut claims of political bias by appointing a Tory, such as former cabinet ministers Chris Patten or Michael Portillo.

Mr Dyke today emerged as a front-runner to become chairman of ITV plc after banking chief John Nelson withdrew from the race. The former BBC director-general was made 4-1 joint favourite with Vodafone chairman Lord MacLaurin by City bookmaker Cantor Index.