Andrew Gilligan

Andrew Paul Gilligan (born 22 November 1968) is a British journalist best known for a 2003 report on BBC Radio 4's The Today Programme in which he said a British government briefing paper on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction (the September Dossier) had been 'sexed up'.

Early career

Gilligan was born in Teddington^[1] in London and was educated at Grey Court School and at St John's College, Cambridge, where he studied history^[1] and was news editor of of the student newspaper Varsity.^[2] He was also a member of Cambridge Organisation of Labour Students and stood as one of its candidates for the Cambridge delegation to the National Union of Students conference in 1994.^{[citation needed]} Keith Vaz said he employed Gilligan as an intern, but then dismissed him because he had forged references on his CV.^[3]

Career in journalism

In 1994, after a summer placement on The Independent,^{[citation needed]} he joined the Cambridge Evening News^[1] and later moved to the Sunday Telegraph where he became a specialist reporter on defence.^[1] In 1999 he was recruited by BBC Radio 4 Today programme editor Rod Liddle as Defence and Diplomatic Correspondent.^[1] In May 2003, Gilligan made a broadcast in which he claimed that the British Government had "sexed up" a report in order to to exaggerate the WMD capabilities of Saddam Hussein.^[4] Gilligan resigned from the BBC in 2004,^[1] in the wake of the Hutton Inquiry and Butler Enquiry. In a statement, he admitted making mistakes and also stated, "The government did sex up the dossier, transforming possibilities and probabilities into certainties, removing vital caveats".^[5]

Gilligan joined^[when?] the London Evening Standard, where he was a critic of former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone. In April 2008, Gilligan was named Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards^[6] for his work on the Mayoralty. In autumn 2009, he joined the Daily and Sunday Telegraph.^[7]

Gilligan is also a reporter for Channel 4's investigative programme Dispatches, covering a number of issues, including a fundamentalist Islamic group in Britian.^[8]

Gilligan presented a fortnightly programme for Press TV, the Iranian government's English-language TV channel until December 2009, though he appeared twice more on the network just before the May 2010 general election. Gilligan in his Daily Telegraph blog accused Mehdi Hasan of lying via a "made up quote" from Press TV staff^[9] in a New Statesman blog article,^[10] In the same blog entry^[9] Gilligan attributed his decision to leave on the "Iranian shilling that was inconsistent with my opposition to Islamism. I have not worked for Press TV since."^[9] Gilligan also said that his work for Press TV consisted of a "regular discussion show on the station, in which Islamism, and the policies of the Iranian government, were often debated and challenged."^[9]

In November 2008, Guardian contributor Dave Hill reported on allegations that Andrew Gilligan had engaged in sockpuppeting.^[11] Gilligan stated that one of the alleged sockpuppets was his partner.^[12]

References

External links

• [1] 2003 profile of Gilligan in The Daily Telegraph
• Column archive at Greenwich.co.uk
• Column archive at The Telegraph
• Column archive at the London Evening Standard