Monday, February 09, 2004
AN END TO TRUST - AS WITH HUTTON, SO WITH BUTLER?
After Iraq, after Kelly, after Hutton, any sane and sensible person would expect the Prime Minister to reflect and focus. Not on the political minutiae, but on the grand sweep - the public’s perception of the Blair government. You know - what we all think of him. New Labour is supposed to be good at this, but it seems to have lost the plot. Consider the wave of public disbelief over Hutton’s findings. Irrespective of whether the inquiry was a whitewash, or a damned incisive report that firmly nailed BBC managerial incompetence, the fact is that, post-Hutton, most people still believe in the BBC more than they do in the government. And for government, read Tony Blair.
So, with Hutton causing more - not less - people to believe he’s shifty and untrustworthy, what’s Blair’s response to the perfectly sensible clamour for answers as to why we went to war? Right. Crunching into reverse gear, he intones that there must be an investigation into the way that intelligence was used to justify the war. Clever paraphrasing, that. Even better, he appoints an elderly and inept establishment clown with all the interrogational skills of Prince Philip vacuously saying to somebody “now then, and what do you do?”
If Blair wanted to claw back some trust, and to demonstrate that he genuinely wants people to know what’s going on, Butler is the last person he should have appointed. Blair compounded this bizarre error by dishing out another set of restrictive terms of reference, which seem designed to allow Butler to reach one conclusion only - that British Intelligence - a priceless oxymoron - are to blame for everything. Charles Kennedy may have made a smart move (his first) by refusing to have anything to do with Butler.
Margaret Thatcher retreated into an “I can walk on water” delusional state from the Poll Tax onwards. Convinced that she was utterly convincing, she simply ran out of people to upset and had to go. With his “if I say it to be true, then it must be true” mentality, Blair seems to be following the same pattern. As the Prime Minister retreats further into the sanctity of his own mind, public respect for politics and politicians continues to wither. Into the emerging political vacuum crawl the extremists of the BNP and others. And that’s a dangerous state to be in.
After Iraq, after Kelly, after Hutton, any sane and sensible person would expect the Prime Minister to reflect and focus. Not on the political minutiae, but on the grand sweep - the public’s perception of the Blair government. You know - what we all think of him. New Labour is supposed to be good at this, but it seems to have lost the plot. Consider the wave of public disbelief over Hutton’s findings. Irrespective of whether the inquiry was a whitewash, or a damned incisive report that firmly nailed BBC managerial incompetence, the fact is that, post-Hutton, most people still believe in the BBC more than they do in the government. And for government, read Tony Blair.
So, with Hutton causing more - not less - people to believe he’s shifty and untrustworthy, what’s Blair’s response to the perfectly sensible clamour for answers as to why we went to war? Right. Crunching into reverse gear, he intones that there must be an investigation into the way that intelligence was used to justify the war. Clever paraphrasing, that. Even better, he appoints an elderly and inept establishment clown with all the interrogational skills of Prince Philip vacuously saying to somebody “now then, and what do you do?”
If Blair wanted to claw back some trust, and to demonstrate that he genuinely wants people to know what’s going on, Butler is the last person he should have appointed. Blair compounded this bizarre error by dishing out another set of restrictive terms of reference, which seem designed to allow Butler to reach one conclusion only - that British Intelligence - a priceless oxymoron - are to blame for everything. Charles Kennedy may have made a smart move (his first) by refusing to have anything to do with Butler.
Margaret Thatcher retreated into an “I can walk on water” delusional state from the Poll Tax onwards. Convinced that she was utterly convincing, she simply ran out of people to upset and had to go. With his “if I say it to be true, then it must be true” mentality, Blair seems to be following the same pattern. As the Prime Minister retreats further into the sanctity of his own mind, public respect for politics and politicians continues to wither. Into the emerging political vacuum crawl the extremists of the BNP and others. And that’s a dangerous state to be in.
