The details of how Dr Kelly’s name came to be made public has been the subject of other close-focus scrutiny All of this will have consequences. And one of the most striking characteristics of the whole affair is the way that both pro- and anti-government factions have somehow managed to hear within them only the evidence that supports their earlier position or prejudices.The narrow inquiry has focused on issues such as whether the account of Dr Kelly, in public and to his superiors and friends, was more truthful than that given by Andrew Gilligan on the BBC. There, bureaucrats protected vested interests, covered their backs and passed the buck. Intelligence analysts who objected to spin being put on reports from the field were overruled by senior civil servants anxious to please their political masters.In effect, there have been two inquiries at the same time. It was the attack on Mr Campbell which had put “booster rockets” on the whole affair. Tabloid talk indeed.Nor was the picture of the inner workings of the Ministry of Defence more reassuring. This was tabloid government with a vengeance, and where vengeance for slurs on the name of Alastair Campbell were seen by the Prime Minister, on his own admission, as more serious than what it perceived as an assault on Mr Blair’s integrity.

We have learned that Mr Blair is an obsessive headline-watcher. And that his acolytes live in a world of leaks and spin and smears.In this almost paranoid atmosphere big issues – such as the accusation that the Government was guilty of exaggerating the case for war – are reduced to talk of “playing chicken” with the BBC which had reported the allegation. It has not been an edifying spectacle.Between them, the verbal accounts, the mounds of confidential documents and the collection of e-mails (which have fossilised what in previous eras would have been evanescent conversations) have painted a portrait of the goings-on in the corridors of power in our time which, without Hutton, we would have had to wait 30 years for the normal public record process to uncover.What has been disclosed is a febrile atmosphere at the heart of government, presided over not by elected Cabinet ministers but by a first-name coterie of prime ministerial appointees preoccupied with presentation as much as policy. The cross-examination of witnesses is yet to come, but already the softly-spoken law lord has uncovered the workings of the machinery of modern government in a way which is quite unprecedented.
While apparently sticking to the narrow remit he was given by Tony Blair – who was anxious to restrict him to investigating the immediate circumstances of Dr Kelly’s death – Lord Hutton has revealed far more than the Prime Minister could ever have intended. It is hard to overstate the significance of what has emerged from phase one of the Hutton Inquiry into the death of the government weapons expert Dr David Kelly. A point will come when the children of the new middle classes will start demanding political rights, having become used to the material benefits of economic liberalisation. China’s leaders must know the most enduring political slogan of all: no taxation without representation.

For its part, Beijing should not feel humiliated over Hong Kong. The lesson is that democratic protest does not necessarily mean chaos. Conceding rather than attempting to crush, in Hong Kong and ultimately in China, is the best safeguard against disaster.The writer is a BBC Special Correspondent. A country which is becoming a world economic powerhouse cannot sustain forever Lenin’s ruthless politics of control.I suspect the Politburo knows the country is perhaps one generation away from a major upheaval.