At last Hain will be found out
Girvin requested the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, to inquire into whether the three had sought to pervert the course of justice. Hoping this would pass Westminster by, Hain tried the line that he had acted disinterestedly for the sake of victims, and then, to distract attention, strengthened his campaign for the deputy leadership by launching an attack on President Putin and the ‘murky murders’ with which he was associated. (It was not lost on the NIWs that although everyone knew that the IRA was responsible for the murder of the informer Denis Donaldson last April, it suited Hain for political reasons to declare its leadership clean.) The appointment of the Whitehall-savvy Peter Scott QC to conduct a restricted inquiry has caused little excitement in Westminster.
Republicans rightly call their secretaries of state ‘proconsuls’, for they are powerful, yet electorally unaccountable. Still, they are under more day-to-day scrutiny than most Cabinet members: the NIW microscopes can quickly reveal virtues and vices which are missed on the mainland. Lack of principle is a frequent characteristic of the quick-fixers who try to make deals in Northern Ireland, but what has staggered many is that Hain has shown an arrogance and contempt for the law that would have horrified any unionist prime minister of an unreformed Northern Ireland.
Of the five New Labour secretaries of state, pin-up populist Mo Mowlam did a terrible job, not just because she had no sense of history and ignored the details of her brief, but because she was at heart a hippy who was antipathetic towards uniforms, stuffiness, the God-fearing and the law-abiding. Yet her party and the country thought she was a triumph who was axed by a jealous Blair.
The spinners’ spinner, Peter Mandelson, confounded preconceptions with his genuine empathy with victims of terrorism. Long after his resignation he continued to give money, time and effort to those pursuing a civil case against the Omagh bombers. (Hain, by contrast, distinguished himself by falling asleep during a meeting with a bereaved father.) No surprises with the others: John Reid was a capable and articulate bully and Paul Murphy a safe pair of hands. But Hain — and what one journalist calls his ‘brazen self-serving’ — is a revelation.
Given his South African background and his troops-out history, it was assumed he would be instinctively pro-nationalist, yet it was quickly clear that what drove him were the orders of his present and future masters and personal ambition: flouting honour, sense, morality — and now, it emerges, the law — he has been on a three-pronged crusade. In a miasma of zealotry, he is in search of a legacy for Tony Blair, substantial cost-cutting for Gordon Brown and the Labour deputy leadership for himself.
More articles from: Ruth Dudley Edwards | this section
Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
Advertisement
Labour’s U-turn on social housing for non-immigrants is welcome but too late
Rod LiddleRod Liddle says that metropolitan liberal ideology is too deeply ingrained in local councils, social services and the judiciary to be overturned by one panic measure driven by Labour’s sudden fear of the BNP
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with
Cass SunsteinCass Sunstein — co-author of the hugely influential Nudge and an adviser to President Obama — unveils his new theory of ‘group polarisation’, and explains why, when like-minded people spend time with each other, their views become not only more confident but more extreme
Who would have thought a herd could moonwalk?
Mark EarlsThe acclaimed web theorist, Mark Earls, says that the death of Michael Jackson unleashed the extremes of collective action: mass mourning and sick jokes
A splendid lunch with Jimmy McNulty
Deborah RossIn the first of an occasional series of interviews over meals, Deborah Ross talks to Dominic West about The Wire and the challenge to an Old Etonian of playing an American cop
What Jacko needed was someone to say ‘No’
Uri Geller
My defining memory of Michael Jackson — vulnerable, brilliant, otherworldly — is of watching him dance to the soundtrack of a movie.
Another Voice
Matthew ParrisBelieve it or not, Mandelson has grown impatient with spin and presentation
Insanity has always been integral to New Labour
Martin BrightMartin Bright says that the party labels its enemies as ‘mad’ for Freudian reasons: ‘projecting’ its own collective and individual mental disorders upon foes and rebels alike
Dave has some special new Labour friends
Anne McElvoyAnne McElvoy spots a new political type: the ‘Labrators’ who have more in common with Cameron than Brown, and may co-operate with a Tory government
Gordon pleads for one last chance from the girls
Melissa KiteMelissa Kite says that the PM is ill at ease with female colleagues. No surprise that it was the women — Blears, Flint, Kennedy — who rebelled while the men hid under the table
Where is our inspiration when we most need it?
Bryan ForbesBryan Forbes remembers listening to Churchill as a 14-year-old evacuee and now looks with envy at Obama’s capacity to galvanise hope. Where are his UK counterparts?
Latest blog posts
sponsored links
BIG SAND STEEL BAND
IF YOU ARE PLANNING A CHAMPAGNE RECEPTION and looking for some light entertainment, you can now hire London's busiest steel
BOSC LEBAT, Tarn et Garonne.
BOSC LEBAT, SW France. Only 45 minutes from Toulouse Airport with daily flights from most provincial airports avoiding the horrors
ROME CENTRE
PORTA METRONIA, ROME Standing high on the top of one of the seven hills of Rome- the Coelian- this unique
Spectator Business | Apollo Magazine
Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms
Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP
All Articles and Content Copyright ©2008 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved