Tony Blair

London, Jan. 30 (Reuters): British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s trust ratings have slumped despite his emphatic victory over the BBC in a long-running feud over Iraq, opinion polls showed today.

As ousted BBC head Greg Dyke hit back at a judge’s report which lambasted the broadcaster over its reporting, analysts noted the government’s satisfaction at its win did not seem to be shared by the voting public.

“Tony Blair and other ministers may imagine they are now in the clear but a substantial majority of the public takes a different view,” said Anthony King, professor of government at Essex University.

Hutton castigated the BBC and cleared the government over the suicide last year of Iraq weapons expert David Kelly, plunging the corporation into the biggest crisis in its 82-year history. “A dispassionate judge has looked at the facts and made his judgment on the facts and that is where the matter should rest,” Blair’s spokesman said.

But opinion polls in three newspapers today and accusations of a whitewash suggested there may yet be a political price to pay. An ICM poll in the Guardian showed Blair’s trust rating down two points at minus 17 and that support for the invasion of Iraq to counter the threat of still unfound chemical and biological weapons had fallen six points in a week to 47 per cent.

A Populus poll in the Times indicated public trust in both Blair and the BBC had fallen almost equally and a YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph showed 52 per cent of their sample thought Blair had behaved improperly.

“The poll figures... do give rise to very considerable concern, I think, among everybody involved in political life,” said senior government minister Lord Falconer. Kelly killed himself last July after being named as the source of the BBC’s claim the government knowingly exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq — triggering a fierce battle between the government and the broadcaster. Blair's foes, many commentators and large parts of the public were bewildered at the wholesale bill of health Hutton handed the government compared with his censure of the BBC.

“He’s given the benefit of judgment to virtually everyone in the government and to no one at the BBC,” Dyke said. Hutton's report came a day after Blair narrowly averted parliamentary defeat on a key education bill, seeing him through a two-day period that had threatened his political future.