Saturday, July 21, 2007 

That predictable backlash in full.


Most interesting now will be how the other Blairite boot-lickers and sycophants will respond.
With all the dignity that is rightly associated with them. First up, Martin Kettle:

Unsatisfactory it may be, but this is the political reality of the cash-for-honours saga now. Tempting though it is to spend time being indignant about the disproportionate police inquiry, the leaks to the media, the impact on the blameless Ruth Turner, the anti-semitic undertone against Lord Levy, the all-round political opportunism at Westminster, and the hypocrisy of those who rushed to judgment about Tony Blair in defiance of due process, the truth is that the whole thing was an overinflated episode from an era that has passed. It was an instructive glimpse into the not particularly edifying intestines of the political system that morphed into a general Get Blair binge. And that particular party is over now.

Just drink it all in. Disproportionate, blameless, anti-semitic, opportunism, hypocrisy, defiance of due process, overinflated, binge, Kettle's certainly not averse to bringing out the hyperbole himself in his mission to defend our sainted ex-prime minister. To claim that the attention on Lord Levy was in any way racist is to enter into the fantasy land which previously resulted in Levy's rabbi turning up on Newsnight to make the absurd accusation in the first place. Moreover, who is Kettle to decide that the police investigation was "disproportionate"? The allegations made against the government and its advisers were some of the most serious that can be leveled against a government: that it was in effect selling honours in return for cash. As Yates himself yesterday pointed out, the very reason it lasted so long was because they came to believe that there had been an attempt to pervert the course of justice. If Downing Street and all those associated it with it had fully cooperated from the beginning it might well have been over with far sooner.

Kettle at least didn't fill his entire column with just how unfair Yates' inquiry was. The Scum however does nearly fill its entire leader with its own dismal rant:

THE “cash for honours” inquiry was shameful, spurious and damaging to Britain.
Here then is the country's biggest supporter of the police, cheerleader for ever increased powers biting the hand that feeds. Only when such an inquiry involved either Blair or a Murdoch entity could the Scum refer to it in such disingenuous terms.

For 16 interminable months the police cast a shadow over Tony Blair’s Premiership and wrongly conveyed the impression that our entire political process was corrupt.
Sorry, is this the same Sun which regularly decries politicians for doing anything other than that which it advocates in its leader columns? As Jeremy Paxman has pointed out in the past, it hasn't been the BBC and others that have helped destroy faith in politics, it's been the Murdoch press which demands constant loyalty and obeisance, knowing full well it can decimate politicians just as it can build them up. It was in this climate that Blair and his hangers-on started to believe that they were invincible, so much so that they felt they could get away with such downright devious methods of funding as secret loans. We expected that from the Tories, but not from Labour, until the rise of Blair and his Faustian pact with Murdoch. To now attempt to shift all the blame on to the police shows where the real corruption lies in our democracy.


About £1million of our money was wasted as over-zealous Scotland Yard chief John Yates desperately ferreted around for evidence of criminality.

He found nothing. Not a shred.


Oh, except for those 10 files of evidence, some themselves containing over 1,000 pages, all of which were handed over to the CPS. Yates found plenty of evidence; it was the CPS that felt it wouldn't bring a prosecution.

Meanwhile senior Labour figures were put through hell by persistent leaks from the Met cynically designed to convey their guilt and against which they could not publicly defend themselves.

Oh, boo fucking hoo. When the leaks concern alleged terrorists, or the latest horrific crime the Scum's describing in all its gory details, the paper can't get enough of them. Even if the leaks did come from the Met, something by no means proved, it seems some sort of justice that a government that lived by spin and briefings finally came unstuck through their own methods being used against them.

Fundraiser Lord Levy was arrested twice. Downing Street aide Ruth Turner was seized at dawn.
Poor diddums! Blameless Ruth Turner, suffering the indignity of the police turning up on her doorstep at dawn, which is a well-known police tactic because it's the one time that they're almost certain to find someone in. Someone somewhere is playing the world's tiniest violin for the both of them.

Mr Blair suffered the stress and humiliation of being the first serving PM quizzed over a criminal matter.
If there was any justice, Blair would be suffering the stress and humiliation of being the first former PM to be quizzed over committing a war crime.


It is now the Met’s turn to answer some questions.

Commissioner Ian Blair must explain why the probe he launched on the back of a politically-motivated request from the Scottish Nationalists was so long and costly.
Err, because the police were doing their job, and as previously stated, Downing Street wasn't exactly helpful.


Questions must also be asked of Yates’ conduct — fruitlessly searching, month after month, seemingly determined to keep going because his reputation hinged on it.

That reputation is in tatters now. He is in danger of looking like an ambitious chancer who was hell bent on staking his claim as the Met’s next commissioner.
Here commences the smearing. Unlike all those other noble policemen the Scum salutes on a daily basis, whose devotion to their duty is never questioned, Yates is pilloried because he dared to take seriously accusations of dishonesty concerning the highest echelons of our parliamentary system.

Yates quizzed 136 people. Finding no evidence to support the original accusation he switched his attention to vague stories of a cover-up.
Yes, of course he did. Nothing to do with the possibility that Levy and Turner were being less than honest, as the leaks to the BBC and Grauniad showed back in March.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown stoically defend the police’s right to carry out the investigation. But the truth is that it was a disgrace.

Treasure this. It might be the only time the Sun ever decides that a police investigation was a disgrace.

Our ex-PM, who knew he and his aides were innocent, is exonerated.

Yes, it was all just a massive coincidence those donors were nominated for peerages. The ex-PM is cleaner than clean!

He begins his new career with his reputation unsullied.
He might be a warmongering, lying, obfuscating, murdering bastard, but at least he's not corrupt. Maybe he can have that on his tombstone. The Sun meanwhile, remains the disgusting, whitewashing, brown-nosing rag it's been throughout the Blair years.

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7/21/2007 09:11:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, March 07, 2007 

Levy still stinks.

Much continuing comment over the Guardian's sort of breaking of the injunction handed to the BBC to prevent Friday's story on the loans for peerages story from being broadcast.

To recap, the BBC, which claims to have more than one source for its report, attempted on Friday to broadcast their story that stated that Ruth Turner, Downing Street's director of external relations, was worried that Lord Levy, Labour's chief fundraiser, had provided a inaccurate account of his role in drawing up the Honours list. On approaching the police for comment, they informed the BBC that they felt this was information that should remain outside the public domain, as it could potentially affect the bringing of charges or the possibility of getting a conviction. They then contacted the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, who applied for an injunction and was successful. All this resulted in was a mass of speculation over the report, with most of those guessing about its contents doing so correctly. The injunction was loosened on Monday when it became clear that the pretence of withholding those named in the report was no barrier to their names becoming public.

This is where the Grauniad comes in. Their account of events is that Patrick Wintour, their political editor, was informed of more or less the exact same story as the BBC had tried to broadcast. The police again attempted to seek an injunction, but both they and the attorney general refused to say whether the injunction which was already in effect was over the same story. As a result, the attorney general was left only with relying on the Contempt of Court act, which the Guardian's lawyers argued, successfully, was highly unusual as no charges have yet been brought. In any case, the paper had already been printed, with the judge deciding that the case was highly balanced, and so the story came out.

As it turned out, the stories were almost entirely the same. The only major difference was that the Grauniad's alleges that Levy tried to influence Turner's account of events, rather than simply presenting one which Turner thought was inaccurate.

The main allegation made is that the leak came from Downing Street: firstly to the BBC, and then once that was stopped in its tracks, to the Grauniad. Behind this is the way that the story is being interpreted as clearing Turner and incriminating Levy, taking the suspicion away from Number 10 and towards a rogue, somewhat independent figure. Levy, perhaps fearing that he's been cut loose in the same way as Des Smith was, has come out fighting, accusing the media of a "smear campaign" with his lawyers condemning the reporting of the latest developments as "partial, contradictory, confused and inaccurate".

I personally am suspicious over this view of events. While the leaks certainly take some of the heat off Downing Street, there had in recent weeks been something of a break in reporting on the whole police investigation. The last time that the leaks/news of the inquiry had reached fever pitch, with Blair being questioned for a second time, some commentators thought that Blair might be forced out early as a result. Instead, everything died down. Downing Street has very little to gain from leaking the story, even if it clears them, as all it does is bring the whole sordid affair back into consciousness that it had otherwise left. The BBC has also made it clear that their story has multiple sources, and in the aftermath of Hutton, it's unlikely to lie about it. Nick Robinson and Michael Crick, the two reporters who have most concentrated on the affair, are also far from Downing Street's favourite hacks. While some have been describing Wintour as the No.10 House Pet, it's worth noting that Martin Kettle, someone far more favourable to Blair than the Guardian's leaders usually are, was opposed to the injunction being broken. The other unintended effect of the whole mess has also been to once again focus attention on Lord Goldsmith, and his decisions which have been seen as being far from independent, something which Downing Street would want to avoid at all costs. Would Goldsmith have been so vociferous in attempting to get injunctions if this was information that Number 10 wanted out?

The second allegation being thrown about is that the reports could potentially prejudice a trial, or lead to charges not being brought, or that it's allowed Lord Levy to blame everything on the media and the police being beastly towards him. This is helped along by the statement from the police condemning the Guardian's breaking of the injunction: they maintain that the reporting of Turner's concern over Levy could undermine their investigation, but they've provided no evidence of this, and the Yates' inquiry is still expected to last a few weeks more. The police's distaste at this leak being reported however though seems odd when you consider that the whole inquiry has been defined by leak after leak, with the police and Downing Street accusing each other in turn. One side has to be lying, and while this leak may well have came from No 10, that all the others came from the same place seems wholly unlikely.

The report itself is hardly earth-shattering. When something stinks, there's only so much you can do to counter the smell; you can try and smother it with air freshener, but eventually you're going to have to remove the offending article or person. We all know that Levy stinks, that the honours list ponged like a frightened skunk, and this report only furthers the belief that he was at the centre of a possible cover-up. This doesn't by any means acquit Turner from also being involved, or indeed Blair and the few other people who were involved in the loans loophole in the first place. Levy himself is so desperate to try and spin himself that he was last night resorting to getting his Rabbi to go on Newsnight to suggest that somehow all the speculation and flying accusations are anti-semitic, as if the fact that Levy happens to be Jewish has had any influence on the reports at all. What does he and his "supporters" expect when he's at the centre of a government which isn't noted for its openness?

For those who honestly believe that the Grauniad has been played by Downing Street, or that Wintour is either repaying a favour or otherwise, it's worth looking at Downing Street's favourite pet when it's come to leaks: the Sun, whose coverage of the whole scandal has been so light and so sycophantic that it's laughable. The Sun's political editor gives over most of the only report on the developments to Levy's arguments, and then in conclusion comes up with this brilliant explanation for why Levy asked Turner to support his version of events:

In Miss Turner’s document, she explains she is uncomfortable at being asked to support Lord Levy’s recollection of how the honours list was drawn up.

One explanation could be that she simply misunderstood his request.


Ah, that must be it! The day's other article is given over to Ruth Turner's mother, who's also complaining about how her poor daughter is being put through the wringer:

THE mother of No10 aide Ruth Turner spoke out today over the “heavy stress” on her daughter caused by the cash-for-honours probe.

Marie Turner said: “It is unimaginable to think what she must be going through. She has nobody to talk to at all. As far as we know this must be one of the stresses for her.”

Mrs Turner, who lives in Connecticut, told a newspaper: “We are at a great distance and she cannot talk to either of us - that leaves her to carry a heavy stress on her shoulders alone.”

In her interview Mrs Turner also said her daughter was “above board, honest and her integrity is beyond reproach”.


Quite right. She's clearly just an angel with a face dirtied by the irresponsible media.

Whatever the truth or the source of the leak, Rusbridger's defence, being to say damn us if you will and prosecute us if we have done what you accuse us of, is at least honest. That is something that cannot be said for Blair. The longer the police investigation goes on, the less likely it seems that any charges will be brought, but it will be this, along with Iraq that will remain his legacy, however much they try to pass the buck, or no matter how many times Levy brings his background into it.

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3/07/2007 07:40:00 PM | | | links to this post

Saturday, January 20, 2007 

They don't like it up 'em.

Do you remember how many times Blair professed his "complete confidence" in his namesake as the head of the Met? He did it on more than a couple of occasions last year. That's what makes the reaction to the arrest of Ruth Turner, Blair's political liaison officer, on the suspicion of perverting the course of justice in connection with the loans for peerages investigation, so illuminating. Out they come, all united in their questioning of the "theatrical" nature of the arrest, done as it was "before dawn" at 6:30am.

All of which made me remember the treatment of Lana Vandenberghe, who worked for the Independent Police Complaints Commission. She was the one who leaked the reality of what happened to Jean Charles de Menezes to ITV news, disgusted by the way that the police had lied and attempted to cover their tracks over what took place at Stockwell tube station on the morning of the 22nd of July 2005. For her trouble, she too was arrested before dawn, but rather than being questioned and released within hours like Ruth Turner, she instead had her door kicked in by 10 police officers and was thrown in a cell for 8 hours without access to food, water or a lawyer.

Whilst what Vandenberghe did was clearly in the wider public interest, correcting the myths which had been perpetuated, Ruth Turner is widely thought to have been arrested for potentially destroying evidence, i.e. deleting emails, a serious, imprisonable offence.

As Curious Hamster points out, this is the same government that wants us to trust the police, that wants them to be given further summary powers of justice and desperately wants us to believe that if we have nothing to hide then we have nothing to fear. As ever, when the boot is on the other foot, the predictable loyalists and hangers-on of Blair emerge from out of the shadows to voice their distaste. Isn't it all so terribly unfair?

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1/20/2007 08:59:00 PM | | | links to this post

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