Re: [A-List] UK state: Hutton aftermath

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Simon Heffer writes:

This new Establishment is packed with people who have willingly surrendered
their principles in order to hold ministerial office. Serving the public
seems very much a secondary consideration to having an interesting,
well-paid job with a chauffeur-driven car. Just count the number of
ministers - Mr Blair among them - who happily fought the 1983 general
election on Labour's manifesto, which included unilateral nuclear
disarmament, leaving the EC and nationalising large swaths of British
business. Look at the ones who used to be student revolutionaries,
anarchists and syndicalists. Just look at those who have never had a job in
the private sector, and who therefore have no room for independence. More to
the point, just examine the innumerable acts of prestidigitation,
sleight-of-hand and downright lying that the government has engaged in with
the public. And just ask the BBC and, indeed, any newspaper about the
relentless and shameless bullying that Alastair Campbell, Peter Mandelson
and others engaged in to ensure that the best possible gloss was at all
times put on the actions of a government that felt it should be portrayed as
wise and infallible.

Nor, like its predecessors, is this a group of people who play by the rules
or accept responsibility. Ministers avoid Parliament at all costs. Matters
that ought to have been subject to a full inquiry, in the public interest -
such as the Kosovo expedition, the Iraq war or the foot-and-mouth outbreak -
are swept under the carpet. And when something goes wrong, the old maxim
that civil servants advise but ministers decide is discounted. If a civil
servant can be found to take the blame, he is blamed. So bullied and so
careerist are the higher ranks of the Civil Service that they make little or
no protest at this. The prime purpose of our rulers is to smother dissent,
stifle criticism, intimidate the media and dismantle any part of the British
constitution that impedes them in that activity. This is about power for the

sake of power. This Establishment is no longer at the apex of a social order
and a nation, but entirely apart from it except when, parasitically, it
feeds off it. That, Lord Hutton, is what the Establishment you have just
whitewashed is really like.

It is always provocative to make such comparisons, but there is a parallel
here with how Hitler hoodwinked President Hindenburg from January 1933 until
the old soldier's death a year later. The stiff, correct Prussian simply
could not begin to imagine the sort of tricks that the Nazis were getting up
to, nor would he have comprehended their wholesale refusal to play by the
rules. Hitler well knew this, and Hindenburg's unknowing service to him as
head of state was that he allowed the Austrian corporal to get away with
murder through ignorance rather than complicity. Now, in a government run by
lawyers, the new Establishment understands all too well how recourse to the
judicial inquiry can help them appear whiter than white to the public, and
to maintain their hold on power (though the public, to its credit, does seem
to have seen through this, with Hutton being by way of the last straw).

Of course, the Major government did something similar with the Scott inquiry
into arms to Iraq. Despite taking infinitely longer than Lord Hutton to
ponder his conclusions, and despite having a reputation as something of a
progressive, Sir Richard Scott nonetheless produced a similar
industrial-sized vat of whitewash. But then the Major government was in
prototype what this administration is in a de luxe version: composed of
careerists, unattached to principle and not above deceit and duplicity when
it came to staying in office. The new Establishment cuts across party
politics. It is about a conspiracy of those in power to stay in power and
uphold the impregnability of their high offices. It is as well they can rely
on the unwitting help of some of the older members, who do not realise how
the rules have changed. The electorate, we must hope, are a little more up
to date.

Simon Heffer is a columnist on the Daily Mail.

------

To understand the above paragraphs one need only read the final sentence.
What a load of crapola, to put it mildly. This is the guy who wrote the
fawning biography of Enoch Powell, for goodness sakes. More importantly,
however, he reveals just how disconnected and bitter are the punk
Thatcherites from what is really going on, and, in a way, tells you
something of why it should be this way. For Heffer desperately wants to have
it both ways -- he admires authority and hierarchy, he wants to serve the
greater good and is willing to defer to the higher ups. And for decades,
nay, centuries, the higher ups were deserving of such deference, because
they were innately good. It was only when the imposters of John Major's
administration managed to sneak in that the rot set in. The New Labour
avalanche in 1997 sealed the fate of the "honourable establishment", which
has been totally displaced by "people who have willingly surrendered
their principles in order to hold ministerial office". Their only difference
with the Conservative predecessors that Heffer hankers after forlornly is
that the Conservatives of old had but only one principle -- to hold
ministerial office.

Heffer has to be careful, because he does not want to impugn the motives of
the honourable judge, whose instinct to protect the establishment was
absolutely correct, in his view. No, the problem is that he's protecting the
wrong establishment! How dare these imposters hoodwink the honourable judge,
just as Hitler deceived the good Hindenburg (!)

This is what gives the game away:

"This is about power for the sake of power. This Establishment is no longer
at the apex of a social order and a nation, but entirely apart from it
except when, parasitically, it feeds off it. That, Lord Hutton, is what the
Establishment you have just whitewashed is really like."

Apparently there are two Establishments -- the real one after which Heffer
hankers, and the bunch of cowboys and chancers who presently occupy the
reins of power:

"the Major government was in prototype what this administration is in a de
luxe version: composed of careerists, unattached to principle and not above
deceit and duplicity when it came to staying in office. The new
Establishment cuts across party politics. It is about a conspiracy of those
in power to stay in power and uphold the impregnability of their high
offices."

Oh dear. Unfortunately, Anne, this is not the principled jeremiad of an
objective observer able to chart the truly downward trajectory of "Great
Britain" during the last decade, but instead a lament for doomed middle age,
consigned to the sidelines and irrelevance by the very counter-revolution
that he and his ilk cheerfully sponsored way back in the 1970s and 80s.

Bah humbug to bastard Blair, horrible Heseltine, macabre Mandelson and
hideous Hurd, and raise the banners in tribute to glorious Maggie...

Pass the sickbag,

Michael

ps Even the most casual glance at the careers of the "great and good" that
Heffer wishes would be reincarnated to lead us back to honour and glory will
reveal just how careerist our leaders have always been. The revolving doors
connecting Whitehall, Westminster and the City were never mere legend. But
the secrecy inherent in the older, cosier arrangements of "gentleman's
clubs", military circles, merchant bank boardrooms and the Palace of
Westminster are obviously much more to the taste of Heffer than the uncouth
arriviste nouveau riche poseurs who have usurped the places formerly
occupied by the "true" Establishment.