In today’s Politics Show interview with Tony Blair, Blair came up with a pretty comprehensive excuse for not investigating a crime:
This was all to do with historical events in the past
(The Saudi Arabian arms deal corruption investigation being the cause of the quesiton, unsurprisingly.)
So that’s ok, as long as your crime was in the past, it’s not worth investigating. That should help cut the prison population at a stroke as people start using that defence in court, “It’s ok m’lud; I did commit the crime but it was in the past.”
And your starter for ten for any pedantic chronologists reading: can you have a historical event that isn’t in the past?
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8 Comments
What I thought was more damning was his statement that crimes should not be investigated if the investigation would undermine “the national interest”.
I thought our over-riding national interest was in living in a society where the rule of law trumped ministerial discration. Mr. Blair clearly disagrees!
Very interesting. I saw the Frost/Nixon play last night about David Frost’s interview of the ex-President. In those interviews Nixon used exactly the same point to justify the Watergate cover-up that it was in the national interest, as well as the line “It’s not a crime if the President does it”. Very similar to Blair’s understanding of his position in this case: the law is subject to the Government.
Its consistent with New Labour’s crime policy – lock them up if they might commit a crime, that way crim might go down…
I guess the “national interest” is the reason why Thames Valley Police has decided not to investigate the murder of Dr David Kelly. The interests of the US oil industry and military and industrial complex being equivalent to the UK national interest, of course.
There was a fascinating article in yesterday’s “Daily Mail” about Lord Lambton and Mrs Norma Levy. Yes, the first ever outing for that notorious “compromising position” photograph.
The Conservatives are the party of law and order, are they not? Yet Lambton (a junior minister in the Heath government) (1) buggered a 20 year-old rent boy in Levy’s presence (a crime in 1973), (2) solicited the supply of heroin and cannabis from Levy, and (3) smoked cannabis while in Levy’s bed. And while this was happening, courts up and down the land were sending people to prison for doing the very same things. Indeed, it was only a decade since Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe had tried to persuade Harold MacMillan to let him prosectute Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears.
I imagine Lambton’s defence would be that as an aristocrat he was above the law. Rules are only for lesser scum like the rest of us.
Whilst I share some glee at the thought of Tony Blair being tried (although I’m utterly ashamed of my self for for that glee) we should try not to feel that way.
Firstly, the guy deserves to be presumed innocent and treated accordingly unless compelling evidence of apparent guilt is found and a jury reject his explanation.
Secondly, such an event will do massive damage to the office of Prime Minister in the eyes of the public.
It would be an opportune moment for anyone who wants a directly elected government as in the US (“scrutiny of a government appointed by parliament has failed, it’s time for a true separation of powers and a government directly appointed by the electorate” they will say).
I wonder if America’s swing to the right in the 80s wasn’t /partially/ connect to the shame brought on government by Watergate. Carter and Reagan were both elected as “Washington outsiders” and no current Federal Officer holder except Bush Snr in 1988 has ever won the presidency since Watergate. Carter did not even hold state office at the time he was elected President.
All the post-Watergate elected Presidents except Bush Snr have have been Governors rather than Federal politicians. Carter (Gov, Georgia) Regan (Gov, California) Clinton (Arkansas) Bush Jnr (Texas).
The involvement of Clinton in a heap of alleged corruption in his own state and Bush in alleged election-rigging by using state government apparatus may swing things the other way, which bodes will for Hilary, Obama, or McCain. Any of them would be the first sitting Senator since JFK in 1960 to win a presidential election.
One more thing on the US, I wonder if anyone will ever contemplate using the brilliant tactic of the old (American) Whig Paty who produce three or four Presidents in the mid-1800s. What they did was to stand different candidates for President in different parts of the country. If they collectively won a majority in the electoral college, their delegates then elected the highest polling of the Whig candidates as President. The system pre-dated the modern primary system.
Lincoln was a Whig before he became the first Republican President.
Here and now, Liberal Democrats should seize the moment to say that aspects of our inadequate constituion openly invite corruption and reform is long-over due to put an end to abuse.
The Republican elite has a problem. The candidates they want (Rockefeller, Ford) tend to get rejected by the Southern rednecks who have the first shots in the primaries. Nixon was a compromise candidate between the Rockefeller moderates and the hard right. Ford was a “safe pair of hands” (he had helped cover up the Kennedy assassination), and a Bonesman. In 1980, the elite realised that their preferred candidate, Bush, couldn’t beat Reagan. So they did a deal. Reagan could have all the trappings of office, while Bush and his group actually ran the show behind the scenes. Rather the same deal we have today with the idiotic Bush Junior and Cheney and co pulling his strings.
The moral of the story is, I think, always elect an organ-grinder, because you know what you are getting. If you choose the monkey, you will end up with unseen (and unaccountable) puppeteers.
The Presidential system is far too dangerous. Nixon? Lyndon Johnson? Reagan? And the contemptible nincompoop, Dubya?
Last week saw the death of E Howard Hunt, the Watergate conspirator who may well have fired the shot that killed John F Kennedy. In the USA, if the President doesn’t do what the elite wants, he dies. And if someone is almost certain to get elected, and do things the elite doesn’t want, he also dies. Watch out Hillary and Barack.
According to “Private Eye’s” wonderful front cover (“Nixon in by Close Shave”), the reason no-one shot Nixon is because Spiro T Agnew would be next in line. I wonder.
“So they did a deal. Reagan could have all the trappings of office, while Bush and his group actually ran the show”
Of course in this country there could never be a deal between two contenders for the top office with one agreeing to give the other complete control in certain areas in return for their support to get elected!