Government ministers, newspaper columnists, ordinary people - they're all asking why the BBC doesn't say the Hamas gunmen who carried out appalling atrocities in southern Israel are terrorists.

We regularly point out that the British and other governments have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but that's their business.

As it happens, of course, many of the people who've attacked us for not using the word terrorist have seen our pictures, heard our audio or read our stories, and made up their minds on the basis of our reporting, so it's not as though we're hiding the truth in any way - far from it.

No-one can possibly defend the murder of civilians, especially children and even babies - nor attacks on innocent, peace-loving people who are attending a music festival.

There was huge pressure from the government of Margaret Thatcher on the BBC, and on individual reporters like me about this - especially after the Brighton bombing, where she just escaped death and so many other innocent people were killed and injured.

That's why people in Britain and right round the world, in huge numbers, watch, read and listen to what we say, every single day.

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