Standards Watchdog Chief Says What We All Know
Sir Alistair Graham, Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life has had the strength of character to criticise Blair in an interview with the Independent on Sunday, suggesting that the Prime Minister is guilty of being weak on sleaze and disagreeing with the Prime Minister’s blatantly inaccurate claim that David Blunkett had not been guilty impropriety.
History suggests that what may follow is some sort of campaign against Sir Alistair Graham in a bid to replace him with a poodle. I hope that doesn’t happen because quite clearly he is someone that is on top of his job and is dedicated to improving the reputation of politics. His response to the events of last week is exactly the right one, which is to say that David Blunkett was guilty as charged, but that the Ministerial Code will be reviewed in the light of events – not because the Code is wrong, but because it is inevitable that lessons are there to be learned.
It is quite interesting that, after the resignation last week, Alistair Campbell appeared on every channel, trying to bolster Blair’s position and deny there was a crisis. The clearest sign that there is such a crisis is the very fact that the former chief bully for the Prime Minister had to be called upon.
posted by Martin Curtis at 11:02 AM
2 Comments:
Tell us about your views on David McLetchie then - a man who unlawfully took money from the taxpayer. Or is your spin on that to hope it just goes away.
And while we're at it - tell your Cambrdigeshire mate Johnny 'Black Wednesday' Major to get over it. I'm fed up with his pathetic whining about how unfair it was that he lost. As not even pin stripped Tory boys like yourself will defend him it's about time he learned that he lost because he deserved to.
McLetchie deserved to go, his conduct was a disgrace, Blunkett's conduct even more so. Is that plain enough? The differrence between the two is the fact that the Leadership of the Labour Party tried to ignore all the evidence and pretend there was no issue with regards to Blunkett.
John Major could have been a great PM but instead of moving forward on his agenda for social reform and of championing the citizen, he spent his whole time trying to pull together two very disparate wings of the Conservative Party.
The issues that caused those splits are, happily, now resolved and I look forward to a new, resurgent Conservative Party putting an end to the culture of spin over substance which Blair and Brown continue to champion.
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