New Labour: perverting the course of justice?
Posted on Monday 18 December, 2006
Filed Under Uncategorized
The front page splash in morning’s Times must have made uncomfortable reading for some Number Ten Staffers. According to the newspaper, unnamed Downing Street aides and Labour Party officials are being investigated on suspicion of perverting the course of justice during the investigation into the ‘cash for peerages’ scam. It appears some of them have been somewhat reluctant to let Scotland Yard see all the material it has requested:
‘Some e-mails and documents have yet to be handed over to the police while others have apparently “disappeared”. Some individuals are suspected of colluding over evidence …
Remember, these developments come after a fire in Lord Levy’s offices, and the theft of four laptop computers from the office of former Labour Party general secretary Matt Carter. Further valuable evidence may well have been lost as a result of these, ah, unfortunate coincidences.
Hopefully, it will be starting to dawn on many ordinary Labour Party members who backed the Blairites with greater or lesser degrees of conviction that the Blair fundraising machine looks like it does indeed have a case to answer.
What started as an effort to court business at the political level has transformed Labour into a glorified influence-peddling racket with the shrivelled remnants of a once-mass social democratic party still attached. A change of direction is now the only chance of avoiding a return to Tory government. Here are some more extracts from The Times article:
‘A prosecution source said: “There is more than a suspicion that evidence has not been handed over, people have colluded and the police are not being helped.
‘”It has been noted that when the Watergate scandal forced President Nixon to resign, it was the cover-up, not the burglary, that brought him down. What these people should remember is that they are not dealing with a parliamentary inquiry; this is a criminal investigation and anyone failing to co-operate is participating in a criminal offence.” …
‘The possibility of charges on perverting the course of justice was discussed by CPS lawyers after meetings with police. Such charges can be brought if a person tries to interfere with an investigation that might bring criminal proceedings.
‘The charge, which carries a maximum life sentence, was used against Jonathan Aitken and Jeffrey Archer. According to the CPS, “it does not matter whether or not the act results in a perversion of the course of justice: the offence is committed when acts tending and intended to pervert a course of justice are done”.’
The Times speculate that the issue could come to dominate British politics for months, if not years, overshadowing Gordon Brown’s efforts to draw a line under the past.
Well, there is one – and only one – declared candidate in the forthcoming leadership contest that has not been complicit with the political processes that have led to a situation in which a serving Labour prime minister finds himself questioned by Scotland Yard in connection with a graft inquiry. That’s another reason to vote for John McDonnell.
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7 Responses to “New Labour: perverting the course of justice?”
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What happened to all the people who voted for foot in 79? Are they dead or just disenfranchised? Maybe they’ve swung to the right? Who can say!
Personally i wasn’t born. I wish Mcdonnell had more of a fighting chance
In reply to the comment above, Foot wasn’t elected by the members – only MPs had votes for leader when he was elected in 1980. He got 139 votes to Healey’s 129. Several rightwing MPs who defected to the SDP admitted they voted for Foot to try to accelerate Labour’s destruction.
Interesting that Blair is charging around trying to leave a “legacy” when he’s already going to be remembered for three things:
1. On the international stage, a perverse backing for US military adventurism that has left hundreds of thousands of people dead and destabilised the world. The knock-on effects for security in the UK came home to roost on 7/7.
2. Accelerating the process whereby we have a US-style two-party system with a smaller gap between the two than ever before. Both parties now adopt a pick’n'mix approach to centre-right policies making them indistinguishable from the Republican-Democrat system in the USA.
3. The cash for peerages scandal and general sleaze is now overpowering. Even if there are no convictions, Blair’s regime will forever be tainted with this stench, just like Major, just like Wilson.
There is a fourth “legacy” that Blair probably wouldn’t want attributed to him. It’s different from the other three because it’s progressive, albeit by default.
Devolution to Wales and Scotland has opened up opportunities for left-wing politics again in those countries that have inspired socialists across the world. Devolution will ultimately help bring about the break-up of the British state and the chance to undo the Blairite legacy.
Luke’s comment above demonstrates the lack of intelligence among the SDP defectors. Michael Foot was a very consensual leader of the Labour Party who diplomatically reduced the damage of the SDP split and held the party together through its most difficult period, both internally and electorally.
Denis Healey was a very abrasive character who would in all likelihood have split the party in the other direction and would have done very little of encourage a united party. Unfortunately, Michael Foot’s legacy was that the Labour Party survived substantially intact to be inherited by Kinnock and, disastrously, Blair.
Seren
Alternatively he might be remembered for:
Having smashed Milosevich and Saddam
Breaking the back of a century long Tory dominance where the best Labour could do before was serve 6 years
Having removed the hereditaries and introduced devolution and secured the basis for a lasting settlement of a 700 hundred year long conflict between the two islands of the NW European archipeligo.
True enough, he wasn’t as pure as the driven snow, but please don’t repeat Daily Mail bollocks dressed up with a bit of leftih rhetoric. The way it is going we’ll have the Tories back soon enough and you can cry into your pillow about how you helped throw it all away by reating the Tories’ mantra.
Last of the Blairites by name and by nature, I see.
If regime change was the intention – as is now stated – then why not Mugabe? Are there degrees of oppression? Is it OK for regime change in oil-rich states but not banana-rich states? A frankly pathetic argument.
Breaking a century of Tory dominance by apeing the Tories is hardly progress. I’m not going to over-romanticise the 45-51 government but at least that achieved lasting reforms (like the NHS) in difficult economic circumstances. Blair’s lasting achievement with the NHS is to burden the next generation with PFI schemes that could bankrupt some NHS trusts.
He’s fudged the House of Lords reform – there are still 92 hereditaries aren’t there? And of course he’s replaced them with all his little helpers and donors. Mmm, democracy never smelled so good.
As I said, he’ll be remembered for devolution but not in the way he thinks.
Northern Ireland is a peaceful mess – the Good Friday Agreement copper-bottomed sectarianism. Any party elected to the Assembly (remind me, when is democracy going to be allowed again?) has to declare which side of the divide they represent. It has entrenched that divide for another generation rather than building a non-sectarian future for all.
“he wasn’t as pure as the driven snow” – you’re Alistair Campbell in disguise (or some other comedian).
If Cameron was elected tomorrow it would make v little difference to the average person in the street.
seren, you are clearly about 10 or a billionaire if you think electing the party of privilege and reaction will make no choice. Our enemy doesn’t change, only our capacity to remember why we hate them.
As for the Zimbabwe argument – is that the best you got? “You should have killed more fascists.” FT.
“Apeing the Tories”? You really are a fool, aren’t you? I am old enough to remmber the Tories winning the 1970 election, no matter 1979 – let me say that the worst Labour government is always better than the best Tory government. Try as might I cannot remember any Tory government introducing a minimum wage, paid holidays, the sex discrimintion act, the health and safety at work act, national parks, new towns, aiming to get 50% of our young people into university, rebuilding all our schools, the biggest ever hospital building programme and so on. The truth is that you’d be mouthing your ultra left platitudes no matter what Labour government was in power and no doubt, if you’d been around you’d have said Attlee was no better than Churchill, Wilson than Douglas Holm or Heath and we might as well have Thatcher for all the use Callaghan was.
History has judged your politics to be a drag on progress, while Labour continue to write the book on progressive social change.
The truth is that there is only one party that has delivered social progress in this country in the last century and that is Labour. Understanding that simple is what differentiates the rational from the fuckwitted.