Government controlled media is something that many are afraid of in this country, and in the world. Yet it seems that those same people are not watching TV! I stumbled across BBC2's pseudo science programme Horizon last night and suddenly was very aware of how easy it would be for our leaders to push an agenda through a popular TV show.

The programme was about how the effects of nuclear radiation need to reassessed because the linear model that is used to denote strength of exposure Vs chance of death is wildly inacurate. Now this is a fair thing to point out and to report, the fact that the model doesn't cope with small doses of radition is an area that needs investigating, if the programme stopped here that would be fine, but it didn't.

Horizon decided to speculate about what would happen to those people who had a little exposure to radition and according to the model should be suffering from leuchaemia. They put forward two ideas and backed them with no evidence save the word of some hairy looking scientists, some dodgy statistics, and some personal accounts;

- The first was that radiation in low doses is not dangerous at all,

- The second is that low doses could actually be benificial and prevent cancerous cells from forming in the body.

I sat dumbfounded by what I was watching, and in the back of my mind alarm bells were ringing, for only the day before the programme aired, our premier had announced to the country that Britain would after all get new nuclear power stations to combat the loss of power from lack of fossil fuels, and greener ways of making electricity would not be considered.

Let me make it clear at this point that I am not against nuclear power, and think it's a sensible way forward, but I understand that many in this green and pleaseant land do not share this view. So it seems that this program, this trusted scientific magazine show, is trying to win over doubting members of the public and convince them that nuclear power is more than safe, it's actually friendly and could help with a cancer problem that many face in thier lives.

Outside of coincidences, why would such a programme be shown in close proximity to an announcement about nuclear power? Why would the BBC schedule a programme about this subject so close to a government announcement on the same subject? Why even would the BBC take a scientific hypothesis and make a show that extrapolates it beyond sensible boundaries?

I half expected to see a Lord or two in the credits, maybe a party political broadcast banner at the end! I've been worried about the Government messing with the BBC for a while, this only gives me further cause for concern.