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thomas davison

Hypocrisy and this insidious culture of secrecyBy John Kampfner
PUBLISHED: 00:24, 3 August 2012 | UPDATED: 07:53, 3 August 2012

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The decision not to release official papers on the Iraq war exposes yet again how the political class thinks it is above public scrutiny

We British pride ourselves on our open government. We like to celebrate, as we did at the Olympics opening ceremony, our history of stable democracy and the importance of �people� power.

We sustain these values far better than most countries, but we often delude ourselves about the way we are able to hold the powerful to account.

I fear this is what has happened over recent years after a series of official inquiries have been set up to try to establish the truth about immoral behaviour in key areas of public life.

There could be no greater charge against a Government than that of incompetence or that it lies to its electors over the reason for going to war.

Promise: Sir John Chilcot, head of the Iraq War Inquiry, had pledged to produce a 'full and insightful' account of the decision-making process which took Britain into the conflict
Several inquiries have attempted to investigate this charge with respect to the war with Iraq. The first, by Lord Hutton, was considered a �whitewash� after it was accused of giving the Government an easy ride over its failures. Now, the Chilcot inquiry seems set to go the same way.

These inquiries have one key principle in common: the public�s right to know about the use and misuse of power. But what the public has discovered is governments of all parties are guilty of covering up the most serious abuses of power.

How else could one interpret the decision this week by Attorney General Dominic Grieve, who vetoed the release of documents detailing minutes of Cabinet meetings in the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq? In a separate move, the Foreign Office successfully appealed against a judge�s ruling and blocked the disclosure of extracts of a conversations between Tony Blair and George W. Bush days before the invasion.

Controversy: Attorney General Dominic Grieve vetoed the release of documents detailing minutes of key Cabinet meetings
Despite a judge�s ruling to the contrary, the Government decided the content of a phone call between the two men on March 12, 2003, would present a �significant danger� to UK-U.S. relations.

The Tory Attorney General�s attempts at justifying these craven acts of censorship were almost as regrettable as the decisions themselves. He said he made his veto after consulting former Labour ministers, his Cabinet colleagues and Labour leader Ed Miliband.

One can understand why politicians want their questionable actions to remain hidden from public scrutiny for 30 years, by which time many key players in this particular squalid drama will be enjoying a comfortable retirement.

While historians will be able to debate the morality of their decisions, the politicians, civil servants and security chiefs will have escaped being held to account.

The effect on public morality of all this is deeply disquieting.

For more than three years, Sir John Chilcot and his team of academics and former diplomats have been trying to get to the bottom of what happened in government before the decision was taken to join the Bush administration and launch a war against Saddam Hussein.

Behind the inquiry�s deferential questioning of all the big-name politicians, the panel has shown an admirable determination to do what the other investigations have failed to do � to get to the heart of the matter.

Tragically, as they began compiling their final report, they have met relentless resistance from the Establishment.

Not only has the Civil Service refused to let the inquiry publish key documents, but Chilcot has been told he must give advance and detailed notice to anyone who might be criticised in his final report.

What�s more, a phalanx of well-paid lawyers representing politicians and civil servants will have access to the provisional findings, and push for any criticism of their clients to be watered down or removed.

Alastair Campbell giving evidence at the Iraq Inquiry: Campbell has earned handsome publishing fees for putting his defence in the public domain, before the conclusions of the inquiry have been published
But there is no shortage of information publicly available about what happened, thanks to books, politicians� memoirs, newspaper articles and documentaries.

Many of those involved, from Blair to his aides Alastair Campbell, Jonathan Powell and Peter Mandelson, have put their self-justifying defences into the public domain first � earning handsome publishing and newspaper serialisation fees. In doing so they have used the same spin tactics they deployed in government. Meanwhile � irony of ironies � Blair is paid millions to travel the world telling foreigners how to resolve their conflicts.

The hypocrisy of all this is extraordinary.

At the same time as cashing in on their accounts of the war, successive members of the political class have closed ranks to stop the public from finding out the truth of what went on.

Dominic Grieve is just the latest name to be added to this list which includes Labour�s Jack Straw, who also banned the release of Cabinet minutes covering the Iraq war.

Most sickeningly, there seems to be one law for politicians and another for everybody else.

Striking: Lord Justice Leveson has asked newspapers to make public every scrap of private correspondence he thinks relevant
It is striking to note that Lord Justice Leveson, in his inquiry into the Press, has asked newspapers to make public every scrap of private correspondence he thinks relevant. But in Westminster and Whitehall, the word �confidential� has been redefined to allow public information to be censored to protect politicians and civil servants.

One might think a Government of a different political persuasion would want to expose the faults of its predecessor, but that is to misunderstand the nature of power and the political elite�s desire to protect its own interests.

It is no wonder that the Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham (who is responsible for the public�s data rights), feels so let down by the Attorney General�s decision this week.

David Cameron pledged before taking office that his Government would herald a new era of openness. In fact, the reverse has happened.

Revealingly, Blair has often said that the passing of the Freedom of Information Act (which was designed to uphold the public�s right to freedom of information) was one of his Government�s worst mistakes.

Most right-minded people would call it one of its greatest democratic achievements.

For his part, Cameron appears to think �excessive� openness leads to bad administration.

The official excuse for this culture of secrecy is that ministers and officials need to discuss urgent and important matters out of public view.

In some respects, this is justified � but not when potential malfeasance or major errors of judgment are involved that affect the national interest. This is the case with the Iraq war, which led to the deaths of 179 Britons and an estimated 110,000 Iraqis.

It is a cardinal principle of a democracy that the public must know who connived with whom at such times, for the sake of openness and accountability.

Most worryingly, I fear this Cabinet is seeking to go one stage further than its predecessors and is seeking to enshrine secrecy in our judicial system. The outcry over the UK�s role in the torture and �extraordinary rendition� of terrorist suspects (when they were illegally transferred between countries) was understandable since we are meant to be a civilised people.

Suspect: Binyam Mohamed won a case in the Court of Appeal over the collusion of MI5 and MI6 in his torture
But the reaction of the political class has been morally outrageous. They believe that the problem here lies in the fact that information was made public!

Indeed, the security services are still smarting over terror suspect Binyam Mohamed, who won a case in the Court of Appeal over the collusion of MI5 and MI6 in his torture.

With further cases pending concerning the role of senior British officials in the illegal rendition of Libyan dissidents into the hands of Gaddafi�s secret police, the policy of the authorities seems to be � surprise, surprise � more secrecy.

What�s more, the Justice and Security Bill that is making its way through Parliament will allow ministers to demand secret hearings in any civil court case where they believe evidence might damage national security.

They will also be able to prevent a case going to court at all, if it is considered likely to give rise to �difficulties in international relations�.

The public must realise huge principles are at stake here.

A political class that does all it can to protect itself from public scrutiny is not just a danger to itself. It is a danger to the country as a whole if it manages to escape accountability while committing further calamities at home and abroad.

What happened to the promise of transparency you just cannot trust a politician to keep a promise and now they have shut the press up with the Chilcott enquiry we wil get to know even less of thei wrong doings it is time the public decided not to vote for any Party that breaks their promises that would mean no votes for Labour, Lib -Dems or the Conservatives so roll on the IMPERIAL PARTY OR EVEN THE MONSTER RAVING LOONEY PARTIES oh sorry we have had those last parties in for the last 50 years and look what they have done to our country.
OUR COUNTRY? FOOLS IT BELONGS TO THE EU.