It's a year this week since the publication of the Hutton report, prompting the resignation of BBC director general and committed Labour Party supporter Greg Dyke. The outspoken former DG tells Julia Breen how he lost his faith in Tony Blair.

WHEN Greg Dyke was forced to resign from the BBC a year ago, amid the biggest crisis the organisation had ever faced, thousands of weeping staff took to the streets to demonstrate against his departure. The much-loved DG, who had swept in a few years earlier and instituted a culture of change at the national broadcaster, received more than 6,000 emails of support from staff, who staged walk-outs across the country in protest.

Staff also had a whip-round to take out a full-page advert in the Daily Telegraph, protesting at the Government's treatment of Mr Dyke. One of Mr Dyke's friends commented that he couldn't think of a case in the Western world where the resignation of the boss had brought such a revolutionary reaction from staff.

Mr Dyke claims that, when Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey sacked Piers Morgan from the editorship of the Mirror, she told him to leave immediately and not even get his coat, because she didn't want to see "another Greg Dyke incident".

After studying politics at York University, where he is now Chancellor, and stints on local newspapers, Mr Dyke went to work for ITV, and it was his role at TV-am, the breakfast station he is credited with saving through the introduction of Roland Rat, where he made his name.

From there, he went to London Weekend Television, then back to GMTV before becoming chief executive of Pearson Television, which set up Channel Five.

In 1999 he applied for the BBC's Director General post, although his £50,000 donation to New Labour in 1997 made him a controversial candidate. It is perhaps ironic that it was his determination to resist what he viewed as pressure from the Labour Government to report favourably on them that led to his eventual demise.

Now, as the search for weapons of mass destruction is long since abandoned, Mr Dyke, on Teesside yesterday for a business forum organised by the North-East Chamber of Commerce, says he feels "vindicated".

He backed Today reporter Andrew Gilligan to the hilt as the BBC faced the wrath of New Labour's PR machine after a report claimed the dossier putting the case for war had been "sexed-up". Former Government chief spin doctor Alastair Campbell - who Mr Dyke has since described in barely-printable terms - warned that "heads would roll" at the organisation.

"Looking back, there is no doubt that what Dr Kelly told Andrew Gilligan in the Charing Cross Hotel that day was true," says Mr Dyke. "Yes, the Government sexed up the dossier, and yes, in doing it, it influenced the whole basis for going to war.

"The Hutton report was a very strange report. The inquiry was rather good, done publicly and in the open, but that is where Lord Hutton got himself in such trouble.

"He ran this open hearing and then his findings didn't make sense to the public, who had heard all the same evidence and came to a completely different conclusion. It was the Butler report which really later showed the facts."

Following the publication of the report, which laid virtually all the blame at the BBC's door and exonerated the Government, Mr Dyke, along with BBC chairman of governors Gavyn Davies, offered his resignation. Perhaps to his surprise, it was accepted, and the acting chairman of governors Richard Ryder made an abject apology.

Now, Mr Dyke calls the governors "gutless" for failing to show that the BBC was independent of political pressure, and he asserts that their panic may have been related to the fact the corporation's charter is coming up for renewal.

"A year ago I would have described the governors of the BBC as fine, upstanding citizens. Now I would call them gutless, hopeless b*****ds who know little about broadcasting, little about how to be independent from government and little about how to motivate staff," he says.

But his greatest scorn is reserved for Tony Blair, the man whose election campaign he once supported, but whose attempts at reconciliation he now spurns.

"I can't believe he is still where he is after the war. It hasn't affected his position. Yes, he has lost the trust of the British people, but he's still going to win the next election," he says.

In this, he makes common cause with Chancellor Gordon Brown, who, in turn, is said to admire the BBC as one of the country's best-run public sector organisations.

'I think the Chancellor and I both find ourselves in the same position - that we've discovered we can't trust Tony Blair," he says.

The former stalwart is no longer a member of the Labour Party and says his vote this year will "probably" be for the Liberal Democrats.

Since leaving the BBC, he has made a film for Channel 4 called Betrayed by New Labour, and written a book, Inside Story, which sold around 33,000 copies.

"Having started last year in the most powerful media job in Britain, today I am Greg Dyke, unemployed, of Twickenham," he jokes. "But there is an advantage in this, in that I can now say things in public that I couldn't say in private."

While at the BBC, Mr Dyke tried to change the groaning, rusting ship, overloaded with bureaucracy, into a dynamic, fast-moving organisation - which from some quarters drew criticism that it was being "dumbed down".

"One change I took was quite radical, and according to the newspapers we were dumbing down the entire nation. That decision was to move the television news from 9pm to 10pm - hardly the end of the civilised world but you wouldn't have thought that from the press reaction.

"We came under attack for doing it too quickly, doing it early and doing it competitively. Moving the news was the best thing I did at the BBC. It stopped the decline in ratings and freed up the 9pm session, which is how the BBC overtook ITV in ratings.

"By doing it in two weeks I told everyone we didn't want to be a large, unwieldy organisation which analysed everything to the teeth. The BBC I joined would never have moved the news - there would have been endless policy documents, taking into account political opposition, and most likely it never would have happened."

Mr Dyke's reforms at the BBC - which included simple things like opening up an atrium which had been closed for 20 years at BBC's White City building in London - were popular with most staff.

"Although, in the interests of balance, I did receive one email when I left which said 'F*** off Dyke, I never liked you anyway'," he adds

Restoring pride and removing a "culture of fear" which he said existed at the BBC were the keystones of his reforms. But, he says, there are arguments that the BBC is going back to the way it was before he took over.

A review is looking at the way the BBC is run before the renewal of its Royal Charter next year, examining its funding and the role of the board of governors. Mr Dyke believes it needs to change - but it is not his responsibilty any more.

Instead, he is rumoured to be turning his attentions to a bid for ITV - although he said he "couldn't possibly comment" on the rumour. Broadcasting is unlikely to have seen the last of Greg Dyke.