Editorial: BBC report on death of General Kitson fails to show balance about the army's record at the time

​A distinguished general in the British Army died yesterday at the age of 97.

​General Sir Frank Kitson was effectively put in charge of the military in Belfast from 1970 and was one a key officer in Northern Ireland as the Troubles neared their height in 1971/early 1972.

The security forces certainly made blunders yet they prevented civil war. When Sir Frank left the province in early ‘72 the military was gaining the upper hand on terror.

The ring of steel in Belfast, for example, immediately began to secure the city centre from IRA bombing. When, for example, Provisional leaders including Martin McGuinness were flown to London for talks in early July 1972 but did not get their way, and showed their displeasure with a bombing blitz in Belfast later that month (Bloody Friday), the heart of the city, within the secure zone, was not badly touched.

It worked, and began the slow revitalisation of the capital, which within a decade was bustling. Gentle Britain did not respond to that atrocity as nations round the world would have done, by killing the IRA godfathers to protect life after their savage response to failed negotiations, but rather let them all come off their murder and mayhem at a time of their choosing 25 years later.

Yet BBC Northern Ireland yesterday had a 500-word web story on Sir Frank, click here to read it, 450 words of which covered criticism of him, and the rest were neutral facts about him – another disgraceful editorial failure of the lavishly funded national broadcaster. The main BBC evening TV report was only slightly better, by including an academic’s more balanced assessment.

Sir Frank’s seniority amid internment, Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday of course needs scrutiny, as do the then military successes and the context in which they operated of an IRA onslaught, a turning point having been the March 1971 honeytrap murder of three Scots soldiers.