Nick Clegg’s decision to reshuffle Jeremy Browne out of the Home Office and Norman Baker in has triggered a mini-furore, with plenty on the authoritarian right outraged at his appointment to the Home Office given he’s the author of a book suggesting MI5 covered up the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly.
The best riposte I’ve seen has been from Jonathan Calder over at Liberal England:
Some will question Norman’s conspiracy theories about the death of David Kelly. To that, I would merely point out that in an age of Prism and Tempora, it is the state that is paranoid not its citizens.
Though I was also struck by Simon Mason’s tweet pointing out that the right is a bit less outraged by Owen Paterson’s preference for beliefs over science:
W/ all this fuss about Baker I'd just like to remind everyone that the Tories put a climate conspiracy theorist in charge of climate policy
— Simon Mason (@LDNCalling) October 8, 2013
For the record, I haven’t read Norman Baker’s book and am in no position to judge if it strays into the realm of ‘conspiracy theory’. From what I have read, such as non-conspiracy theorist Professor Alastair Hay’s comments here, there appear still to be a number of questions left hanging from the Hutton inquiry. I’ve certainly heard of worse ideas than having inquisitive ministers who are deeply sceptical of the government inside the Home Office. There’s only one way Norman will be able to prove the doubters wrong, though, and that’s by doing a good job.
In the meantime, every Lib Dem and the vast majority of liberals will be cheered up by this newspaper headline…
* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.
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14 Comments
In the run up to the next general election, this will be a very hot seat. There will be huge pressure on Norman Baker to accept illiberal policies. Most of the media, large sections of the Labour party , UKIP and the strategists in Tory high command will be pushing for all sorts of anti-liberal measures. The very groups that would dismiss this comment as a conspiracy theory in itself.
Norman Baker will need to be very tough minded. However he has one major trick to play and that is a critical respect for evidence. I wish him good luck and hope he can leave a recognisably Liberal legacy.
If his appointment upsets Theresa May it’s obviously the correct appointment!
All I want to say is a big well done to Nick Clegg for appointing Norman to the Home Office – a liberal/Liberal voice in a sea of reaction led by Mrs May – one of the most reactionary Home secys. we have had in many many years; Norman will be a truly mitigating voice and hopefully will influence the Department in not negating human rights and civil liberties by keeping us part of all Human Rights treaties & staying within the European .
He did well in transport but he must resist the reactionaries in his new office – pity May herself could not have been replaced by Norman! Now that would be a breath of fresh liberal air!
He is a natural successor to Roy Jenkins – our last liberal/Liberal home Secy!
Chris Huhne says in yesterday’s Guardian that ministers were not told of Prism or Tempora. Why not? That sounds remarkably like a conspiracy to built a secret state. We need a ferret in the Home Office to make the fur fly over this, not someone who is wilfully blind.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/06/cabinet-gchq-surveillance-spying-huhne
Once something is branded a conspiracy theory – the implication is that it is wrong. However, objectively – based on the true meaning of the term, a conspiracy theory could be right or wrong – unless it can be shown that human beings – particularly those holding high office – do not conspire.
Why is that ?
David Orr “He is a natural successor to Roy Jenkins – our last liberal/Liberal home Secy!”. I don’t go along with that, Norman Baker is not the new messiah, just a very naughty boy,but that is no bad thing.
Still amused by the tweet repeated at the end of the Today Programme from some unknown (to me at least) Tory that these attacks against Norman Baker seem remarkably well co-ordinated.
Oh for goodness sake, it’s not (just) that Baker is a conspiracy theorist that is the problem, after all, most of us believe things that are off kilter with reality, it’s that his conspiracy theory covers a conspiracy in the department he is now working in.
His officials, and May, will consider him a joke, journalists and newspapers already do. Not only will he have no respect, because his understanding is so odd he risks doing real damage to the Home Office and no doubt every cock up that can be pinned on him, will be.
It’s like putting somebody who believes that HIV does not cause AIDS in the Department of Health, or somebody who believes global warming is a conspiracy in charge of energy policy.
A sick joke.
g’s comment is over the top. This is the Norman Baker who when in opposition was headhunted by civil servants to teach junior civil servants about the art of asking searching parliamentary questions and how to respond to them. He certainly isn’t a sick joke,
g does have a point that the main controversy about his views is about the department to which he has been appointed. But is our political system really so inflexible that someone who stirs up controversy can never be appointed in that area? Suspicions about the death of David Kelly were by no means restricted to the fringe.
At last, a proper Liberal at the Home Office – no wonder May is reported to be less than totally happy!
I wish Norman the best of luck. He will have a challenging up-hill task as he struggles against an entrenched but incompetant establishment (vide the latest disclosures re so called border controls). To be able to stop things getting any more illiberal is probably the most we can realistically expect however. Let’s see just how the NCA pans out, and whether it is any more effective that the last two attemtps to create a quasi-FBI.
Revealed: How a Blair fixer picked the judge for the David Kelly Inquiry just three hours after the weapons inspector’s suicide
Letter from Lord Hutton shows he was asked three hours after the death
He had not been identified and no cause of death had been established
Hutton was contacted by Blair’s friend and former flatmate Lord falconer
Is evidence of the extraordinary haste with which the Blair Government set up an inquiry to replace the usual coroner’s inquest
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2362659/Revealed-How-Blair-fixer-picked-judge-David-Kelly-Inquiry-just-hours-weapons-inspectors-suicide.html
I think the key question will be whether those at the Home Office (both civil servants and May’s people) will start from a position of trying to block Baker as much as possible. If this happens he will achieve nothing at all. So then the question is do you want him making a difference at Transport or constantly blocked in the Home Office?
There’s a side to Clegg which likes a wisecrack and it’s hard not to conclude this is one big joke by him against the Tories. I wish Baker well, but I doubt he’ll get anywhere.
There does seem to be a distinct lack of ambition here.
Political parties and politicians are usually successful by becoming popular with the electorate through exposing malpractice by the governing party – and once in office correcting the wrong doing.
Since neither the Lib/Dems or the Tories were in office at the time of Kelly’s death – why should there be a problem with NB being appointed to the Home Office and conducting enquires over the affair to establish whether his concerns were justified?
If there is a problem – why is that so?
As PM promotes man who believes our spies covered up scientist’s murder… Will we now learn the truth about the death of Dr Kelly?
Government re-shuffles normally pass most people by, particularly when they involve middle-ranking or junior ministers. I must confess I find it pretty difficult myself to get worked up on such occasions.
But Monday’s moving of the deckchairs produced one change that sent my head spinning. The maverick Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker has been promoted to a number two position in the Home Office.
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, was not told in advance of the appointment by Downing Street.
Her reported fury will certainly be shared by the security services for which she is responsible — and whose views she takes exceptionally seriously.
For this same Norman Baker has written a book claiming that our very own British spooks covered up the murder of the weapons scientist Dr David Kelly by an Iraqi hit squad in July 2003. The verdict delivered by Lord Hutton in his official report was ‘suicide’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2450088/As-PM-promotes-man-believes-spies-covered-scientists-murder–Will-learn-truth-death-Dr-Kelly.html
I was a bit suspicious when Norman Baker became a Minister in the Department of Transport. I was suspicious, because I had heard of his ideas regarding the death of Dr. David Kelly, ideas which I found strange, and still do. However, he was an exemplary and successful Minister, someone that the Liberal Democrats could really be proud of in this difficult Parliament. Why should his record be anything different in the Home Office? Truth be told, the Home Office is a shambles. Theresa May, who once correctly diagnosed the Nasty Party, has long since become the disease rather than the cure. It is time for a good liberal antidote.
Good luck, Norman.