Yet another weekend in politics...12 - 13 April 2008

Judges put their head on the block

On 8 April a High Court judge ruled that Government's retrospective changes to immigration rules for skilled workers were an abuse of power. On 9 April the Government's policy of deporting terror suspects to countries that sign "no torture, no ill treatment deals" was roundly criticised by the Court of Appeal. On 10 April the High Court said the Serious Fraud Office acted unlawfully by dropping its corruption inquiry into the al-Yamamah arms deal as an alleged threat to national security. Lord Justice Moses suggested that the threat was simply a "useful pretext" to avoid embarrassment. On 11 April a judge ruled that sending British soldiers on patrol in Iraq and Afghanistan without adequate protection was a breach of their human rights and that the coroner was within his rights to criticise serious failure on the MOD's part.

Journalists express outrage

In The Independent of 14 April Andreas Whittam Smith commented: "These verdicts underline the dishonesty of politics.....politics is an activity in which casual dishonesty is the way of life. As the saga of MPs expenses has taught us, some actually cheat and many take advantage. Furthermore, government ministers are always more concerned with gaining party advantage than with what they would call legal 'niceties' ".

In The Telegraph of 12 April Sam Leith wrote: "If you let it be known you can swing the odd favour with the judiciary for your special pals, or those who threaten to let your citizens be murdered, you are asking for trouble. So it was a disgrace that Tony Blair should have halted the (SFO) investigation...It was a disgrace that the head of the SFO - whose independence from political considerations, as the judgment reminded us, is required "by statute" - should have caved in to it."

Conservatives show fellowship with politicians in firing line

However, in interview with the BBC: Conservative Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague strongly backed the principle that governments should be able to set aside such an investigation. You will recall that his party brought you Jonathan Aitken, A Conservative Government Minister convicted of perjury over his dealings with Saudis involved in arms purchases. A past article in Conservative Home noted "allegations that Oxfordshire businessman and prominent Al-Yamamah middleman, Wafic Said, has donated money to David Cameron" and there is some past detail of a donation in the form of £100,000 for a ball ticket from Said's English wife reported in The Telegraph. On the recent legal developments, Conservative Home's Editor argues that "The Courts are getting more and more powerful....George W Bush's record of appointing more conservative judges is probably his greatest achievement in the eyes of rank-and-file Republicans."

Which makes one wonder whether the next Conservative Government might try to do likewise in order to more deeply entrench political control over the courts. Will we now see Labour trying to reassert political authority over the Courts? It seems both parties find a truly independent judiciary an embarrassment.

Tiny dots on the planet!

Meanwhile, on 12 April Robert Mugabe described Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a “tiny dot on this planet”, while a YouGov poll for the Sunday Times showed that the popularity rating of Mr. Brown had fallen from 48 on taking office to minus 37: the most dramatic collapse in support of any modern-day prime minister, worse even than Conservative Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who in 1940 dropped from plus 21 to minus 27 after Hitler’s invasion of Norway. On other measures, Brown's highest personal rating was 35% for 'sticks to what he believes in.'

Popular esteem for our politicians is not notably in evidence for the Tories either. Only one person in every five thought that Conservative leader David Cameron 'sticks to what he believes in.' Only one in three respondents thought him 'charismatic' - his highest score on any indicator - and fewer than one in five respondents rated him for "a natural leader,' 'decisive, 'strong,' and 'good in a crisis.' A mere 16% rated him 'honest.'

Just another weekend in politics...4 - 6 April 2008

Greed?

Daily Telegraph 5 April: Lewis Chester, a hedge fund manager, friend of David Cameron and donor to the Conservatives is being sued for fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which alleges that Mr Chester and the hedge fund orchestrated a scheme to defraud mutual funds and their shareholders in the US in a four-year period from June 1999 through late trading and deceptive market timing.

Need?

Times 4 April: David Cameron put more than £21,000 in mortgage interest for his Oxfordshire home on expenses, the House of Commons revealed yesterday. You paid for successive Prime Ministers’ television licences, Tony Blair’s dishwasher, Sir Menzies Campbell’s laundry and £415 a month for cleaning Gordon Brown’s flat.

Weed?

Evening Standard 5 April: "Boris Johnson spoke publicly of taking cocaine and cannabis as a teenager...and ...Virtually the entire Labour Cabinet last year admitted they had smoked cannabis".
Comment: Boris Johnson, running for Mayor of London, is apparently 'considering all options in his response to what he regards as very inaccurate journalism'. But the Evening Standard pointed out Johnson gave an interview last year to GQ in which he was quoted as saying of the cocaine episode: "I tried it at university and I remember it vividly. It achieved no pharmacological psychotropic or any other effect on me whatsoever."

Labour is now trying to get cannabis reclassified as a Class B drug despite the advice of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) which concluded there was no need to raise the classification of cannabis from class C to class B.

Newsfeed?

Daily Telegraph 4 April: Spin doctors under the spotlight
A panel of Westminster insiders (comment - this has been set up by the admirably energetic and rigorous Conservative Home) has been asked to rate the effectiveness of the various parties’ spin doctors. The spin doctors at Tory party HQ easily beat the ones in Downing Street while the Liberal Democrat and Labour party spin doctors were rated lower than Downing Street.

Naive?

Sunday Telegraph 6 April: Mr Johnson said that he had been shocked by the lengths to which Mr Livingstone's supporters had gone to destabilise his campaign. "They are doing blatant misrepresentations of our position, absolutely ruthlessly going around lying about what we are offering. They are literally going round houses knocking on the door and lying".

Comment: That's what they do, Boris. So does your own party. Citizens are really rather sick of negative politicking and you will probably find that your Labour rival's approach rebounds against them at the polls. Unless of course your canvassers are doing the same sort of thing....