Humiliation Tames Little Despots

Michael Portillo, The Times April 19, 2009

Last week went badly for those who enjoy abusing power. Damian McBride left No 10 after his scheme to smear Tories and their families was exposed. Legal proceedings against Damian Green, the Conservative frontbencher, who was guilty only of embarrassing the government, were dropped. The Home Office announced a review of how local authorities misuse their powers of surveillance. President Barack Obama published the shocking justice department legal advice that under his predecessor was used to sanction torture.

Each of the cases is important. Each illustrates the tendency of government, even in mature democracies, to inch towards despotism where it can get away with it. On both sides of the Atlantic we have been on a steady slide and the past week has at least checked the momentum of our descent.

If our democratic liberties are in slightly better shape now than a week ago, it is because those involved in the abuse of power have been humiliated. McBride and Gordon Brown have been humbled. The Metropolitan police, who so terribly mishandled the Green case, have been made to look foolish. Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, has been debased because her department exaggerated the threat to national security from the leaks fed to Green. Those American lawyers who signed their names to waterboarding and other physical abuse of prisoners must defend their reputations now that their advice has been made public.

To enjoy seeing those who abuse power being humbled is not sadistic. The fear of humiliation is one of the few things that make those who hold office think twice about overstepping the mark, which otherwise is so tempting. It is essential that McBride, Brown, the police, Smith and the US justice department experience painful disgrace. That helps to protect us against further violations of public trust and liberties.

It is a delightful irony that McBride, who intended to cause hurt to political opponents by spreading lies, has instead brought ignominy to Brown by exposing a truth about how No 10 operates. The damage to the prime minister’s reputation could not have come at a more excruciating moment. From the Olympian heights of the G20 summit he has fallen into a gutter of his own making.

Labour hoped the next election would focus on the personalities of the Conservatives. It probably planned an onslaught on their public school education and their juvenile social activities at university. Now the campaign is more likely to hinge on the character of Brown. What kind of personal insecurity makes such class issues so important to him? Why does a man who rubs shoulders with presidents seek the company of McBride and Charlie Whelan? If every lobby journalist knew the way in which McBride operated, can Brown really have been ignorant of what went on under his roof?

Some world-weary commentators claim that negative briefings were a feature of our politics long before Labour came to office. That is certainly true. Bernard Ingham, Margaret Thatcher’s press secretary, gave the media his unflattering opinions of some in the cabinet. Later, some who undermined John Major’s ministerial colleagues clearly believed they were doing what the prime minister wanted.

However, since 1997 thuggery has been institutionalised. New Labour has had trouble deciding whether it is a political party or an episode of The Sopranos. Its top people evidently relish menace. A new film, In the Loop, features a spokesman who intimidates ministers and journalists alike with obscene invective. It is a caricature, but one clearly inspired by Alastair Camp-bell. Still, I doubt whether there is any precedent for McBride’s e-mails.

Whatever may have happened before, it is new for an official in No 10 to plan to circulate rumours about opposition MPs and their families. We must not fail to be shocked that another boundary has been crossed.

There has been a dramatic increase in the politicisation of the civil service. I was appointed a special adviser when Thatcher first became prime minister in 1979. There were just five of us in the entire administration and she behaved as though she did not really approve of our existence. We were subject to strict limits on what we could do and although we reported to ministers we were managed within the civil service hierarchy. Since 1997, cabinet secretaries have failed to hold the line. Special advisers are too numerous and out of control. Career civil servants have been cowed by them and some have sacrificed their own neutrality.

You have to wonder how, in the case of the information supplied to Green, a Cabinet Office civil servant could have written to the police: “We are in no doubt that there has been considerable damage to national security already as a result of some of these leaks.” Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, has made clear that the claim could not in any way be substantiated. His statement crushed every argument for prosecuting Green (or even his mole). Starmer is a courageous man. Brown cannot be happy. Watch out for smears against Starmer.

The way civil servants behaved in the Green case matters. To claim that leaks that were merely politically embarrassing damaged national security is an important untruth and, in this case, it had extraordinary consequences. Bob Quick, head of the antiterrorist branch of the Metropolitan police, led an operation to arrest an opposition spokesman and search his home and office. Before our astonished eyes Britain had lurched towards becoming Zimbabwe.

It is alarming that all the safeguards you would imagine would operate failed. You might have expected Brown, who when in opposition made enormous political capital out of leaks, to try to stop the runaway train. He may be prime minister but have all his instincts as a parliamentarian deserted him? Even if they have, he might have foreseen that this would end disastrously for the government.

The Speaker of the House of Commons failed to grasp the huge significance for parliament of Green’s arrest. He is lucky to have survived his failure to oppose such an extraordinary violation of privilege. If the police had been reading the newspapers, they could have seen that the leaks exploited by Green did not touch on national security and that he would be able to argue he had acted wholly in the public interest.

Quick apparently used no common sense at all. Later he accused the Tories of smearing him (a charge he had to withdraw), which was further proof of poor judgment. If he had not resigned after inadvertently revealing secret documents to press photographers, there would surely be calls for his head now.

The home secretary still thinks nothing untoward occurred. Almost every day some new revelation makes her look incompetent or unprincipled or both. It is beyond human understanding how she can bear to go on. If she were a pet, she would be taken to the vet for a painless end. If she were a boxer, the fight would be stopped before she took more punishment. If she were lying between the trenches, some kind soul would deliver the coup de grâce.

In PC Wren’s novel Beau Geste the French legionnaires under siege in their fort prop up the corpses of their fallen colleagues on the battlements to try to impress the enemy with their numbers. The home secretary is still propped up in office, but her political life has ended.

You may feel sorry for her. That would be a compassionate response but an inappropriate one. The attempt to use the criminal law to punish those who embarrass ministers has been thwarted. Were it not so, this would no longer be a free country. Her humiliation is essential to keeping us safe.

Martin Ivens returns next week

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Brilliant article that eloquently puts sentiments that many of us were having about these recent events

John, Singapore,

Journalists may "know" but they don't tell because they're scared of retaliation - by their editor, by the proprietor and by the people upon whom they rely to know. Thus, the conspiracy to conceal evidence goes full circle. Only if it is approved by all in the cabal, will anything be published.

Kingsley Smith, Hong Kong,

If every lobby journalist knew the way in which McBride operated why did they not tell us? What have Nick Robinson and his cohorts been up to? Shame on them.

Karen Wright, Wallasey, UK

Dirk Bruere, Bedford, England

a Cabinet Office civil servant could have written to the police: “We are in no doubt that there has been considerable damage to national security already as a result of some of these leaks.” How can this not be conspiracy to pervert the course of justice? Arrest them!

Ian, Stratford, UK

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