On the road for a few days but leaving you in the capable sounds of Howard Tate.
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There is a fine piece of analysis published at Chris Dillow’s blog on the nature of honesty and the individual in politics.
Dillow takes the protestors at the Chilcot Inquiry on Friday to task. He argues the chants of Bliar show public expectations of honesty in politicians are unrealistic. I’d agree with him.
Political life sometimes demands equivocations, evasions and obfuscation to allow behind the scenes negotation to take place. This was certainly true of the attempts to manifacture a consensus for a second UN resolution before invading Iraq. In this behaviour, Blair was no different than any other politician faced with a dilemma.
But, as Dillow notes, most truly meaningful criticism of what Blair’s government about Iraq related to allegations that the war was a bad idea, badly executed. Complaints about Blair’s honesty, or lack of it, are really just by-product of this*. Equally, this is why the arguments over the legality of the invasion of Iraq are so much more important.
What Blair did during the period 2001-2003 was to apply many different justifications for the desired invasion. This was confusing to the public and made the process look a planned war searching for any excuse to justify it. (We have since had it confirmed this was so.)
At Chilcot on Friday, in between grandstanding and muddying the detail as much as possible with talk of bold global strategy, Blair was candid, or cynical, enough to admit his desire for regime change. Whether he actually believed this at the time of controversy – or had simply promised things to George Bush he found he could not deliver – we shall never know.
Whatever his actual belief at the time he did not find a way to successfully talk about it to the public. Any honesty about his strategic beliefs would have been welcome, even from those of us who did not agree with him or what was planned. There would have been space for a straighter debate (not least in parliament) instead of the evasions, equivocations and obfuscations we got, all of which fuelled the protests and the controversy about the eventual invasion.
Practically, and after the failure to get the second UN resolution, desperation set in and in the search for an existing justification pressure was applied to the Attorney General Peter Goldsmith who was weak.
He was exposed by the flaw in the system and the idea that the senior independent law officer serving the government can also be a minister and on the government payroll at the same time. In this dodgy context, legally dubious things became possible because Peter Goldsmith was persuadable despite his own first legal opinion.
*Of course, Blair had a lot of form including the £1m gift to delay the TV tobacco ban from F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone.
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Sometimes quotation* out of context can be very useful, that’s why people do it.
*Verbal or visual.
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Today’s ritual chastisement is as close to a punishment as the former Prime Minister of the UK will get. He really only ever communicated in soundbites so expect some mouldy oldies today rather like the one above from 1998.
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Peter Goldsmith, the Attorney General (the government’s chief legal officer) at the time of the invasion of Iraq is giving evidence to the Chilcott Inquiry today. His advice to former prime minister Tony Blair has been the subject of great controversy ever since it was given.
The Chilcot Inquiry is the third investigation into aspects of the decision to go to war. Despite being allowed a wider remit than Butler and Hutton, not all official documents are being disclosed to the inquiry. It is believed some of these undisclosed documents include paperwork from Peter Goldsmith’s advice to the PM on the legality of the war. The lawyer’s advice famously changed from ‘No, the war is not legal’, to ‘Yes, it is’ as the deadline for British involvement in the US led invasion approached.
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Measurements of recession change depending on the political and economic beliefs of the times. In the recent past in the UK, recessions have been measured by perceptions of ‘growth’ in national economic activity, so the second definition at the last link is the relevant one.
Of course, the government is very pleased to see today’s news that the UK is now growing again (0.1% in the last quarter – BBC report.) However, every set of statistical information has something called a margin for error which gives some allowance for inaccurate information and this puts this growth into perspective.
Even if we are growing again, the contraction in economic activity that has taken place over the past two years means we are growing again from a very much lower base than previously. You can blame that on the recession (rather perhaps than individual banks, central bankers or politicians) but, if you do, don’t forget to ask yourself what caused it.
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The Telegraph reports on the marketplace squabble between BT and Virgin media over faster access ADSL lines.
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It looks as if the long-running battle for control of the Birmingham-based chocolate manufacturer, Cadbury, will result in a takeover by the American conglomerate, Kraft. The Board of Cadbury are recommending acceptance of the American firm’s last takeover offer. Often institutional investors and ‘Johnny-come-latelys’ such as hedge funds (who buy into stock on the expectation of a deal) make some serious money as it is finally approved by shareholders.
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