LONDON, 12 August 2003 — Within the Blair government, each department of state manifests its own culture in a remarkably idiosyncratic way. The Ministry of Defense is characterized by its secretive approach, and the Treasury sees itself as superior to the rest of Whitehall. The Foreign Office reflects an air of lofty detachment, while No. 10 is distinguished in the public mind by its culture of spin.
This is spin of a different order to the kind which was around for many years. That sort of spin was an attempt to put the best gloss on government policy and action. It was not a consistent and concerted effort at evasiveness and duplicity which has become the hallmark of government in the perception of so many.
The latest crisis for the government stems entirely from its obsession with presentation over substance. What culminated with Dr. David Kelly’s death began with a massive government effort to shift the focus away from the contemporaneous public demand for evidence that the war against Iraq was justified. You will recall that the principal casus belli set down by Prime Minister Blair was that there was an imminent threat to the United Kingdom, and its interests, from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
American and British search teams were delivering nothing in Iraq to justify the claims made both in the infamous September dossier and in the House of Commons. Increasing numbers of people on both sides of the Atlantic were realizing that our leaders had misled our countries, having taken us into war on a false pretext. Public clamor led to two parliamentary inquiries — one by the secretive Intelligence Services Committee, and the other by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. The former is so constituted as to be in the control of Tony Blair; the latter was seen as less predictable.
Along came Alastair Campbell, the prime minister’s communications director, with a diversionary wheeze, appearing before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee to attack the BBC. His charge was that the corporation had made unreliable, uncorroborated allegations on the build-up to war, and had willfully misread the situation. His bravura performance at first succeeded in redirecting the media gaze on to an irrelevant battle between the government and the BBC.
But polls showed that more people trusted the BBC than the government. Worse came with the haunted appearance of Dr. Kelly before the select committee, followed by his “outing” by the Ministry of Defense, and his subsequent death. The prime minister’s triumphalist appearances before Congress in Washington and in Asia were shattered by the dramatic turn of events. With his carefully constructed image being unpicked by the media at each press call, he probably thought that things could only get better, to coin a phrase. If so, how wrong he was.
Before Dr. Kelly’s family had been able to bury him, the prime minister’s official spokesman referred to him as a “Walter Mitty character”. The insensitivity of this remark has caused justifiable outrage, leading to a letter of apology from the deputy prime minister and a wretched apology from the civil servant responsible, Tom Kelly.
Note that he is a civil servant. Reprehensible although his comment was, one might not have been too shocked if the comment had been made by a spin-doctor. It begs the question as to how far the culture of spin has infected those who we thought, hitherto, as being beyond the vices associated with spin-doctors. How many of the great and the good have been assimilated into this mindset wherein there is a failure to distinguish between morality and politics?
Given this sorry image of a small group who projected themselves as the masters of presentation, it is little wonder that there is a massive political cost, with Labour’s poll rating down to its lowest level in 17 years. Naturally, the spin-doctors will attribute part of the blame for this on the Labour awkward squad’s failure to dumbly acquiesce in their gaucherie. This failure to learn is astonishing. Recent weeks have seen ex-government spin-doctors and failed politicians defending the indefensible, creating deeper cynicism among the electorate with every word they utter. They adopt the attitude that attack is the best form of defense, but, in this context, it is disastrous.
Such irresponsible behavior is not lost on the Labour movement. It hears the prime minister call for restraint, and watches in disbelief as his minions fall over each other to ignore him. New Labour is past its sell-by date. Unfortunately, those who have benefited from its superficial attractions cannot see that the wider electorate has seen through it. The bulk of the movement wants the government to forgo its predilection for spin, and consolidate on delivery on the core issues. Their last opportunity before the 2005 election to turn that corner comes at next month’s annual conference.
Bearing in mind the platform’s control of the agenda, there remains the opportunity for the conference to make its views known. It is not a question of its right to do so, but of its responsibility to demand change of the government — a responsibility to itself, to its electoral constituency, and to the country as a whole. An increasing number of loyal backbenchers, questioning what will happen to their re-election chances, will complement a new generation of trade union leaders railing at the government as its attitude toward them swings between indifference and hostility. Between them, they can end the sterile culture of spin, and reconnect with Labour values.
Perhaps by then, Lord Hutton will have reported, and we can then have from government the other answer which we have awaited for too long: why did we go to war with Iraq? And will the government apologize for having misled the British people into an illegal and immoral war?
— Peter Kilfoyle is Labour MP for Liverpool Walton and a former defense minister.
