For the past three months there has been an exchange of bureaucratic fire across the 600 yards that separate the Cabinet Office from parliament. Matt Western, the Labour MP who chairs the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy (JCNSS), is engaged in epistolary warfare with the dour-but-canny Pat McFadden, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and minister in charge of the Cabinet Office. The casus belli is whether Jonathan Powell, the UK’s national security adviser, should appear as a witness in front of the committee to discuss his role.
The post of national security adviser was created by David Cameron in 2010. The occupant is the principal source of advice to the prime minister and the cabinet on national security matters, and until last year was secretary of the National Security Council (NSC) and head of the National Security Secretariat (NSS) in the Cabinet Office.
I say ‘was’, because one aspect of Powell’s appointment was significant.
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