Finally, Gordon Brown speaks about the bungs-for-baronies scandal. It takes allegations of a cover-up, Watergate-style, to prise from the heir to Blair comments mildly supportive of the police. Even Vice-President Spiro Agnew, during Watergate, made a public show of support for legal process as it investigated misdeeds that eventually toppled his boss. Nixon rewarded him by releasing accusations against Agnew of bribes and tax evasion to divert attention from his own problems. In consequence, Agnew was toppled before he could succeed Nixon when he himself was forced from office.
Gordon Brown is no crook and is the very scourge of tax evaders. Even so, it is puzzling that he should seem to be watching his back as if haunted by the Agnew-Nixon precedent.
What has he got to lose by saying: "On the police investigation, I welcome repeated comments from staff at No 10 to co-operate with them fully"? It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the Chancellor is embarrassed by the mismatch between such public comments and a spin operation from No 10 designed to undermine the investigation and have it terminated.
When the Prime Minister was interviewed a few weeks back, much was made of the fact that it was not under caution. It was obviously time to wind up and move on. Then Lord Putnam et al piled in after the arrest of Blair's "gatekeeper", Ruth Turner. Had the police lost the plot? Obviously this investigation was out of control. Now, following the re-arrest, on more serious allegations, of fundraiser Lord Levy, Newsnight's Martha Kearney reports (January 30) the Prime Minister as being "apoplectic" and "being unable to understand why the police are, in his own words, stringing this out" (my italics).
The BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson, reports in similar vein for Radio 4's Today (January 31). (Old Watergate hands will have spotted in Robinson's report a classic non-denial denial in the latest spin: No 10 aides don't have passwords for the Labour Party e-mailing system. Who said they did?) If these reports are accurate then the prime minister himself is effectively interfering with a police investigation. What will the man who takes over that job in a few months do to show he deserves it?
Thomas McLaughlin, 4 Munro Road, Glasgow.
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