LONDON, 20 August 2003 — By the end of this week we may finally learn the full extent to which the machinery of government information has been politicized since Tony Blair took office in 1997.

The Government is now finally reaping the whirlwind of the past six years during which it has suborned the civil service information offices for its own political purposes. But whether it will manage to maintain its iron grip on all the witnesses in the government’s employ remains to be seen. We saw, last week, how difficult it was for the BBC to get all its witnesses to sing from the same song sheet. Individual civil servants may also be prepared to go only so far in their willingness to lay down their careers for Blair.

According to the former BBC journalist, Nicholas Jones, writing in his book Control Freaks, the rot set in when New Labour politicized the Central Office of Information in 1997. The Prime Minister asked the then Permanent Secretary, Sir Robin Mountfield, at the now-defunct Office for Public Service, to carry out a review of the work done by civil service information officers “to raise their game”. Writing an article for this newspaper, after his retirement, in the wake of the Jo Moore — “today is a good day to bury bad news” — affair, Sir Robin insisted that his recommendations on new working practices had reasserted the conventional neutrality of government press officers.

But even he noted that this government had used special advisers far more intensively than its predecessors in press communication, sidestepping the official machine. “At the heart of government, the position of special advisers is becoming more powerful and potentially dangerous, particularly in No 10, the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. The effect is not so much interference in civil servants’ impartiality, as the virtual marginalization of orthodox civil service advice”.

This marginalization reflects itself at every level of government — even beyond the information offices — with civil servants’ advice only being taken if it fits the arguments the government has already decided to deploy. Evidence is growing that ministers are no longer interested in weighing up dispassionate advice as to the pros and cons of a particular policy. Rather, individual snippets of advice, lifted out of context, are seized upon to suit the justification of a policy already decided upon.

This is bound to have a corrupting effect on even specialist civil servants, who are under growing pressure to tailor their advice and research to fit only with what ministers and their special advisers and political press officers want to hear. If a civil servant continues to give contradictory advice, the fear of being regarded as awkward or cussed is then likely to develop into a fear of being blocked for further promotion. So the independence of the service is inevitably undermined as civil servants themselves are pressured and encouraged to compromise truth and integrity.

Some would argue that this government has merely extended a practice which was already developing under Margaret Thatcher, and Sir John Nott, the former Tory defense minister during the Falklands crisis, certainly has harsh words for her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, in his autobiography. “Bernard Ingham was a constant nuisance throughout the Falklands campaign — jumping up and down and causing no end of difficulty, criticizing the Ministry of Defense on trivial issues. But I was determined to keep the press under the tightest Ministry of Defense control and, as far as possible, away from No 10 with its obsession for background briefing and for spin.” Sir John hit on a masterstroke by choosing a Ministry of Defense official, Ian Macdonald, as the press spokesman. He spoke slowly and methodically, uttering each word “as if he was savoring a delicious plum”. It was painfully obvious that he could only speak the truth. But there was criticism about the style from Ingham for a “more professional style” so Sir John removed him for a weekend and put on a parade of “polished young officers” to do the job. “Sure enough there was a surge of demand for us to reinstate him.” But this episode clearly underlines the limits of Bernard Ingham’s powers to influence and control other government departments. And while no one would doubt that he was equally as forceful as Alastair Campbell in making his case for his boss, he was obliged by the system, which he did not dream of altering, or even challenging, to observe the proprieties of the time.

By contrast, Pam Teare, the head of news at the MoD, clearly indicated — if by implication — in her testimony, just how much she was subjected to Downing Street influence in the decision to confirm Dr. Kelly to journalists if they put his name to her. The traffic between Downing Street and the MoD appears to have been nonstop, once Geoff Hoon first conveyed the name of Dr. Kelly to Alastair Campbell. According to the former Northern Ireland press officer, Andy Wood, speaking on BBC’s The World at One, Miss Teare would never have disclosed Dr. Kelly’s name to the media if she had not had approval from above — from Hoon, the permanent secretary and, crucially, from Downing Street. It boils down, said Wood, to a lack of trust between Downing Street and professionals working in other information divisions “to get it right, off their own bat”.

This probably also accounts for the reason why Jonathan Powell, in his evidence , confirmed that Downing Street was so heavily involved in considering whether to submit Dr. Kelly to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. It may have been Hoon who said that, for presentational reasons Dr. Kelly should go before the committee. And it may have been Hoon who signed the letter (drafted by Campbell) to the BBC demanding that they confirm the name of Dr. Kelly, but there can be little doubt that he was merely a cipher for Downing Street. No wonder he promises to be robust in defending himself against the weekend briefing that he is to be the fall guy.