Honours inquiry! Ah-ha! So the Guilty got off …?
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Comment at end
15th November, 2007
[ Update to the below - The Guardian says:
"Honours Inquiry Extremely Distracting for Blair" (click here to read article).
The Cabinet secretary makes the point I have been making from the start - yes, I know I wasn't alone. But it should NEVER have started and the judgement that said it should, is questionable. Tony Blair was already under enormous pressure to complete his final months in office ANYWAY , and run the country in his spare time. Dodging various weaponry thrown at him from various quarters, it was a miracle he survived!
Another point - the timing of the announcement of the report for the MPA, or the preview of it, is interesting. On this government website, it has been on the record for some time presumably, that Gus O'Donnell the Cabinet Secretary, would be reporting to the Select Committee today. Is that why the MPA felt compelled to "leak" out a little of their report yesterday, before it is officially handed over to them next week?
Just wondered. Still can't get a decent plumber anywhere these days.]
“IT WAS THEM WOT DUN IT!” - Honest, Your Honours!
I expect the Metropolitan Police Authority had to commission a report. After all the MET had managed to spend almost one and a half million pounds of tax payers’ money on the abortive cash for honours inquiry. An inquiry which contributed, arguably, to bringing down a prime minister and almost destroying a government.
But the headline grabbing - “The most significant evidence was not made public” - is clearly wrong, wrong, wrong!
It’s disingenuous.
Like Mr Blair, they should work out when it’s best to keep one’s own counsel.
If it were so significant WHY did the Crown Prosecution Service not charge anyone with this ’significant’ information? We’d have had all the villains clapped up by now, possibly even putting a stop to the gallivanting of Tony Blair in the Middle East … you know, stop him soaking up the sun in such carefree climes. And just think how happy that would have made The Mail and The Independent, to name but two of our feral pet owners.
I’m not sure if the House of Commons Select Committee, which questioned Inspector Yates recently, (see BBC report after Assistant Commissioner John Yates’ questioning) has completed its own inquiries. But I DO recall Mr Blair saying that he would talk about this police inquiry after the inquiry came to an end. Perhaps he just meant to talk if it turned out badly for his colleagues who were under suspicion. A threat, a tactic maybe. But we can ALL talk in this free country, can we not? I recall that Mr Blair said very little, in fact, throughout the 18 months or so of this inquiry.
I must admit I WOULD be interested to hear something from the side of the innocent, for never forget that’s what they are. Somehow, I doubt if we will.
This kind of continual blackening of names by innuendo misses, by accident or design, the whole point anyway.
AND WHAT IS THAT, I HEAR YOU ASK?
The whole point is that it should never have got this far. The inquiry should have been stamped on at an early stage. Dixon of Dock Greeen would have done that.
“OK, sonny. No more of this nonsense, now. Behave yourself.”
I’ve been over this ground umpteeen times, from various angles, as you can read below.
- See “Innocent Until Proven Guilty”
- And “Police Overkill”
- And “Police - The State We’re In”
- And “Blair: ‘Press A Feral Beast’ “
- And Transcript of “Blair Interview on the Today programme” on Honours Inquiry
- And “Conspiracy Theorists Conspire To Halt Our Free Speech”
- And “CPS Decision”
I’d just like to add this:
If the Police are really suggesting that their contention that the ‘most significant piece of evidence never got into the public domain’ means that THEY weren’t the ones leaking ANY of the stuff, who do they think they are fooling?
They can’t be meaning anything else, surely, by this statement?
“The Metropolitan Police Service remains very strongly of the view that, despite some media comment to the contrary, no material was leaked to the press from within the investigative team.
“This view is further confirmed by the fact that the most significant evidence obtained by the investigation has never appeared in the public domain.”
It can’t mean that it was actually useful evidence as well as oh so ’significant’. If it were useful, why didn’t the CPS think so and charge someone?
And Inspector Yates proved to all of us that he and his force were not going to be intimidated by government. Oh yes. They’d go where few dare go. They’d pursue the highest in the land to the ends of the earth if necessary (to prove that the highest and his friends had been doing what all his predecessors had always done before him!)
TO LEAK OR NOT TO LEAK
As for whether or not the Police had been leaking … the whole argument that since the best bits weren’t leaked then NONE of it was, is facile and holds no water, (to continue the metaphor.)
Selectivity, my dear Inspector. We know you don’t give ALL your cards away, surely, in any game of poker. That doesn’t mean that you can’t give a hint, either straight or not, on some of them. And SOMEONE DID this, on numerous occasions, did they not? The only organisation I can conclude that had ALL the information that was leaked over this period, or even MOST of the information, was the MET. If they didn’t have ALL the information that was leaked, WHY not?
IS THE CPS NOW IN YATES’ SIGHTS?
Call me a cynic if you like, but I’m beginning to wonder? Having failed to shoot down the suspects, is this an oblique way of getting at the CPS? Perhaps they’ve had a falling out over the whole failed charade.
Or maybe it’s really the fault of the Electoral Commission - for not making clear what exactly constitutes a commercial loan.
They may not have found the bodies, but they know something dastardly has occurred! So, someone must take the blame.
VENDETTA?
The whole business was politically motivated by the Scottish & Welsh nationalists. It WAS clearly a vendetta, in my humble opinion, by a few sanctimonious and unctuous, self-important and average members of parliament.
And the Police too were carried away by their own sense of … well, something or other. I hesitate to ascribe ill motives to anyone, but you do really have to wonder. The argument that the Police bear a responsibility to follow up ANY complaint is patently inaccurate as many a victim of domestic abuse will inform you. The Police often pick and choose which complaints to pursue.
The Scottish & Welsh nationalist politicians who complained had been out to prove that Tony Blair is the Devil Incarnate since the Iraq invasion. Iraq, as evidently so many other things, was beyond their understanding, and they have been searching for the WMD/illegal war/war criminal tag to hang around Blair’s neck ever since. When that wasn’t happening and their Impeach Blair plans collapsed, they had to look for something else.
BEING USED?
This nonsense appeared out of the blue, just like that - manna from heaven! I wonder if they have ever considered if they were being used?
If I were one of their constituents I’d want them tested by the local psychiatrist for some kind of condition.
And I STILL feel angry that Tony Blair will go down in history as the first British Prime Minister to be questioned by the police in a “criminal case”.
“Criminal”? The whole thing was criminal.
Report follows, as at BBC site:
Most Significant Honours Evidence “not revealed”
The “most significant” evidence uncovered in the cash-for-honours inquiry by the Met police has not been made public, a report says.
The report rejects claims the police team leaked details and defends the probe as “focused and proportionate”.
It includes details such as detectives requesting a “forensic image” of the Downing Street computer system.
No charges were brought after the £1.4m inquiry into whether money was given to parties in return for peerages.
The report, written by one of the senior investigators, was requested by the Metropolitan Police Authority at the conclusion of the 19-month long inquiry.
It will be presented to the MPA next week.
It states: “The Metropolitan Police Service remains very strongly of the view that, despite some media comment to the contrary, no material was leaked to the press from within the investigative team.
“This view is further confirmed by the fact that the most significant evidence obtained by the investigation has never appeared in the public domain.”
Key decisions
There has been criticism of the way police handled arrests during the investigation.
The officer in charge, Assistant Commissioner John Yates, was questioned by MPs last month and was asked if it had been necessary to beat down the door of Downing Street aide Ruth Turner in a “6am raid”.
But the report says: “Particular measures were put in place to ensure that the arrests were effected as efficiently as possible and in such a manner as to minimise any individual embarrassment.”
It discloses details of the investigation, including the fact that police consulted prosecutors on key decisions - such as interviewing the then-prime minister Tony Blair three times, and a decision to request a “forensic image of the Number 10 computer server”.
Commission criticised
It also criticises the Electoral Commission for failing to provide “robust oversight” of the legal definition of a commercial loan.
Part of the investigation was looking at whether loans given to parties had breached the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA) because they were not on “commercial terms”.
But the report confirms that the lack of a definition for “commercial” caused “investigative difficulties”.
More than 130 people were interviewed during the investigation and four people were arrested - all involved in the inquiry denied any wrongdoing.
Among those questioned by officers included Mr Blair and former Tory leader Michael Howard.
The inquiry was later widened from its original remit to look into any attempt to pervert the course of justice.
The Crown Prosecution Service said in July that there was “insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction against any individual for any offence”.
Some Labour MPs have criticised the police decision to put so much time and effort into the inquiry, prompted by a complaint from an SNP MP, which they saw as a “political vendetta”.
Honours inquiry ‘extremely distracting’ for Blair
Deborah Summers and agencies
Thursday November 15, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The head of the civil service said today that Scotland Yard’s “cash for peerages” inquiry was extremely distracting for Tony Blair in his last year as prime minister.Sir Gus O’Donnell, the cabinet secretary, insisted the government fully cooperated with the police inquiry and said he was “puzzled” by reports to the contrary.
Quizzed by MPs on the public administration committee, about the police inquiry and the impact it had on the government, O’Donnell said: “It was certainly a very important distraction for the prime minister. There were lots and lots of media reports and speculation. He [the prime minister] was forced to consider his response to that.”
It was a “very intensive” process for Cabinet Office staff, who he insisted were instructed by Tony Blair to cooperate fully with the Metropolitan police.”It was to my mind extremely distracting that so many things that were going on - some accurate, some wildly inaccurate - were being reported in the media. It was incredibly distracting.”
Asked about suggestions that some within government had not fully cooperated with police, O’Donnell replied: “We answered all questions from the police. I’m in charge of the Cabinet Office - which includes Number 10 - so I am puzzled [by police claims]… They didn’t ever complain to me about any problems.”
Asked about the decision to carry out the investigation - which cost more than £1m, despite no charges being brought, O’Donnell said: “You need to say right at the beginning, is this an investigation worth starting? That is the point you need maximum judgment.”
SO WHAT DID BROWN & BLAIR SAY ON THE CPS’S CONCLUSIONS?Well, do you want their public thoughts or their private ones? We can guess the latter, but only quote the former.GORDON BROWN:Gordon Brown, the man who ran Labour’s 2005 election campaign, (the one in which the loans were used), said on July 20th 2007, when the CPS announced that there would be no charges in the cash for honours inquiry:
“These were very serious allegations. It’s right that the police investigated these matters.”
I disagree with this analysis, which is one publicly shared by the then prime minister. But then again, what they say in public on this matter is for public and political consumption. I suppose we could not have expected anything else.
I know what I think.
Click here to watch Nick Robinson’ video report. I usually find him quite fair, but here he is seriously inaccurate. Lord Levy did NOT “persuade the very rich to part with their millions for Tony Blair”, but for the Labour Party.
Tony Blair, personally, DID NOT gain from any monies raised. In fact, more than any other, he lost from the whole attempt to make Labour less dependent on trades’ unions finance.
BLAIR’S RESPONSE
And what of Tony Blair himself? What did HE say on this announcement?
Referring not to himself but to the others at the centre of this inquiry, those arrested or questioned under caution (as he was NOT), he said:
“Those involved have been through a terrible, even traumatic time. Much of what has been written and said about them has been deeply unfair, and I am very pleased for all of them that it is now over.
“I want to make it clear that I level no criticism at the police. They were put in an invidious position by the SNP complaint and had a very difficult task to perform. “
Mr Blair also said the inquiry ended “as I always expected it would”.
LORD LEVY, highly relieved that it was finally all over, said that he had been “disappointed by the constant leaks to the media which had been personally damaging to me.”
But as Nick Robinson said, “more damaging to the man that Levy once said was like his brother. Tony Blair’s last year in office was blighted by three words - cash for honours”.
Carmen Dowd, Head of the CPS Special Crime Division, said:
“Having considered all of the evidence in this case I have decided that there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.“
Assistant Commissioner John Yates said the allegations had been serious and the way police had handled the inquiry had been “absolutely proper”.
AND AS FOR A “COVER-UP”
(And it completely evades me as to why anyone but the police would want to leak that there were “cover-up” allegations) -Remember too, that the CPS also said that “the weight of evidence does not support” allegations of a cover-up.After all of the rumour, leaks, suspicion, dodgy judgement and kite-flying I’m almost tempted to ask - “is the MET fit for purpose?”Read the BBC report here.Read the CPS decision in fullAnd just to show that I DO have a sense of humour, go and take a look at this. This kind of satirical site is not always smile-worthy, as the bitterness tends to show through. But I did smile at this one.
Most of it’s silly, of course; but the last paragraph’s right.
