The BBC turned down an offer, before Kelly was named in the affair, to end its row with the government, according to the left-of-centre Guardian daily.

The BBC blocked the compromise because it was determined to give no ground in its battle with Alastair Campbell, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's director of communications and one of his closest aides, The Guardian said.

Campbell came out worst in a poll conducted for the right-wing Daily Telegraph, which showed that 65 percent of those asked felt he had gone down in their opinion since the affair.

Blair fell in the estimation of 59 percent, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon 50 percent and the members of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee who grilled Kelly before his apparent suicide 56 percent, according to the YouGov survey.

Police said Kelly, whose body was found on Friday, bled to death after apparently slashing his own wrist. A knife and a packet of painkillers often used in suicides were found near the body.

Kelly, 59, was a Ministry of Defence consultant on biological weapons and a former UN arms inspector in Iraq.

His family said he had been under "intolerable pressure" after appearing before the committee.

Kelly denied being the source for the story but admitted briefing Andrew Gilligan, the BBC defence correspondent whose report triggered the furore.

The BBC's defence of Gilligan's story and insistence that Kelly was its sole source means the corporation is effectively accusing the dead weapons expert of lying, The Daily Mirror said.

"Either Dr Kelly lied to MPs when he said he was not the main source or Mr Gilligan exaggerated his own report," the tabloid said.

The Sun, Britain's biggest-selling tabloid, also blasted Gilligan, labelling him a rat above the headline "BBC man sinks to new low by calling dead doc a liar."

The Financial Times said that the BBC's concession that the scientist had been its principal source will help Blair to contain the worst political crisis of his career.

"Some want Campbell's head and some want a BBC head, preferably Gilligan's. But without at least one head on a pole, to be jeered by the mob and made the subject of endless wise-after-the-event columns, there can be no closure," wrote Guardian columnist Jackie Ashley.

Former foreign secretary Robin Cook, who resigned from Blair's government over Iraq, called in The Independent newspaper for a judicial inquiry not only into Kelly's death but also into the justification for the war.

"Britain also deserves a more respectful political culture and a more mature standard of political reporting," Cook said.

WAR.WIRE