I am of course delighted that John Simpson appears to have experienced a personal epiphany, and now admits to having understood something that he apparently had failed to understand before (despite 40-odd years of war reporting and 2 insignificant daughters):

'It is that life itself is immensely valuable. Not just the lives of people who think and look and maybe worship like you and me, people who are attractive or well-educated or rich, people who are the right type of Christian or the right type of Muslim. All lives.'

A bit late for the 1/2 million Iraqi children whose lives were lost as a result of a brutal sanctions regime, under-reported, un-reported or dispassionately reported; a bit late for the 1 million-odd Iraqis whose lives have been lost as a result of the invasion - an invasion that Simpson reported with such dispassion and even-handed respect for all sides that warmongers were barely recognisable as warmongers. A bit late, too, for all those other millions (unattractive, poor, ill-educated) around the world who have been maimed, killed, starved, irradiated, or tortured as a result of policy decisions by the British Government (and others); and whose damaged or curtailed lives have been reported even-handedly, as matters of hard fact, impartially - if at all.

But still, maybe better late than never. Perhaps John Simpson would now like to ask the BBC to update his quote on their page about 'impartiality':

"During the war in Iraq, opinions were fiercely divided. Both sides were certain they were right. So, as journalists, we had to be very clear about our function. It's to give people the plain, unvarnished facts."

Or maybe not, since the quote bears no relation to reality before Simpson's epiphany either. He didn't give the facts: not unvarnished, not varnished, not at all. Nor did anyone at the BBC, except perhaps one person - and he was sacked. The war would probably not have happened if they had done so.