Wednesday, 17th September 2008

Hutton and Purnell: We support Gordon because it is a requirement of our job to do so

James Forsyth 8:58pm

There’s some pretty tough competition at the moment for the award for the weakest statement of support for the Prime Minister by a Cabinet Minister. But John Hutton is probably the front-runner for his comments on the Andrew Marr on Sunday.

Marr asked Hutton whether he was on the side of the rebels or Gordon Brown. Here’s how Hutton replied:

JOHN HUTTON: Well I'm, I'm on the side of the government and the Prime Minister. I'm in the Cabinet. It's my job to support...
ANDREW MARR: So, so... So you would tell those people...
JOHN HUTTON: ... the work that the Prime Minister is doing and the work that the government is doing. And I...”

This was incredibly weak stuff. Hutton was saying that he supported the Prime Minister not because of his vision for Britain, his courage, his inspiring personal qualities or anything like that but because it is his job to do so. It is the kind of thing that lawyers say when they’re asked why they defend clients who clearly appear to be guilty.

Yet James Purnell has also chosen to use this line. When Martin Bright, the New Statesman’s brilliant political editor, put it to James Purnell that Hutton had been deliberately leaving himself room to back a future leadership challenge, Purnell responded as follows:

"One of the great wisdoms of politics is not to answer hypothetical questions and that's a hypothetical question. As John said, the job of the cabinet is to support the Prime Minister and that's what we're going to do." A final question: While you remain in the cabinet? "We support the Prime Minister."

Now, considering all the comment about how weak Hutton’s defence of Brown was you would have thought that Purnell would have used a more supportive formulation. But he didn’t. This combined with his comment on Monday night that the rebels "are entitled to do anything they want to” and his fascinating Fabian Review interview in which he uses language sure to resonate with the Labour grassroots suggests that Purnell is positioning. He is certainly doing little to shore up Brown’s position.

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Teledu

September 17th, 2008 9:20pm Report this comment

As much as I detest zanuLabour and Gordon Brown, I'm beginning to get bored by all this analysis of anything anyone halfway up the zanulabour tree says.
Let's see what the weasels say at the conference, perhaps then there will be something meaty to pore over. (And lets hope the BBC ask some uncomfortable questions.)

Seasurfer1

September 17th, 2008 9:30pm Report this comment

Brown has been bitten by the Political Commodo Dragon. The 8 Types of Political bacteria are slow, sure and certainly deadly. The run on our banks within the next few days epitomising one of the eight mouth fusing bacterias will spell one of the weakening strains, along with the Housing Crash, the credit crunch, Debt, Liquidity problems, Food and
Fuel Inflation, Political Polls and finally Glenrothes.
Ultimately most of these problems can be traced back to the European and American Shopper spending Dollars, Pounds and Euros at the Supermarkets on Chinese Products and Far Eastern Tat.
In the UK our fondness with Asda and Tesco and their chinese offerings will be our downfall.
BUT the Chinese will repay our currencies by buying our Assets and putting us into Slavery.

Austin Barry

September 17th, 2008 9:37pm Report this comment

Well, I suppose a cowardly Cabinet Minister would want to avoid incurring the wrath of the pantomime, Halloween-ready PM,(Ooooh look at my terrifying monocular glare). So now it's all in the sub-text. Brown is a dead man walking, but the pusillanimous attitude of the Cabinet is absurd. Guys, Brown is history. Get a bit of bottle and just put the boot in - the coup de grace. Then you're left with a couple of years to get your act in order. As it is you are already dead and walking through the political Elysian fields (Hi, John Smith, if only you'd lived my friend, if only you'd lived.....)

The Huntsman

September 17th, 2008 10:49pm Report this comment

"It is the kind of thing that lawyers say when they’re asked why they defend clients who clearly appear to be guilty."

Yet another tiresome, offensive and utterly unjustified and misconceived imputation of dishonesty and misconduct by lawyers who practise criminal law.

Whatever we may think of the guilt or innocence of our clients, if the client says he is 'not guilty', our professional rules (and indeed the law) require us to advance that case to the court to the best of our ability and skill.

If, however, the client says he is guilty, then one may not defend him on any other basis and indeed, save in some very limited and exceptional circumstances, cannot participate on his behalf in a trial at which he maintains publicly a plea of 'not guilty'.

There are plenty of clients who appear guilty. It is not, however, the place of the lawyer to judge them: that is for the Jury or the magistrates. What we think of them is and should remain private.

You would not, I daresay, apply to an ethnic minority with a generalised smear of this kind: why then do you feel free to do so towards the legal profession?

occasional ranter

September 18th, 2008 12:44am Report this comment

Erm... I'm a practising solicitor with a reasonable command of the English language and the law of defamation, and I see no smear, no imputation of dishonesty or misconduct.

How, in substance, does James's comment differ from your own description of the role of a defence lawyer ?

Frank Pulley

September 18th, 2008 1:17am Report this comment

Austin

Whooo-whooo-whooo! You have cut a shyster to the quick. How dare you impune the reputation of our ethical, pristine members of the legal profession? What next? You'll be questioning the integrity of journalists next, or - dare I say it? - b-a-n-k-e-r-s! Shame upon you.