The Guardian alleges that Lord Levy attended meetings at Downing Street which discussed honours. I am not quite sure why comes as a great surprise to The Guardian. They laughingly say: "It is understood that Lord Levy did not contribute any names to the lists nor offered honours to any financial backer." If that is the case, why put this story on your front page as the lead story? This assertion has to be a joke when you look at the names on the Honours list in question - Patel, Noon, Evans etc. If Levy didn't, who did?
Later in the article Patrick Wintour becomes rather defensive about his story yesterday. He writes: "Some police sources accused The Guardian of seeking to ruin their investigation by disclosing that the dispute between Ms Turner and Lord Levy lay at the heart of the inquiry. The Guardian contends that it has not revealed anything that is unknown to the relevant witnesses."
Er, come again? So what? That is hardly a solid line of defence when we are talking about possibly undermining a legitimate police inquiry into key witnesses allegedly seeking to pervert the course of justice.
UPDATE: The Iraq Dossier blog has another take on Patrick Wintour's writing HERE.
26 comments:
i never thought the investigation would be wrecked by the newspapers. just shows that all of westminster benefits from this issue going away.
The Guardian Iain, as you are no doubt well aware, is a tool of New Labour, to help support its policies and misdemeanors without question. Standing well back from this current fiasco with Levy, even a blind man can see that the leaks must come from Number 10 and nobody can convince me otherwise that this closeted band of crooks are in cahoots with the Guardian to try and stop the investigation in its tracks. Just reading the statement by Levy this morning opens the door to an unfair trial, however guilty he is.
My memory is not so short that I can't remember the extremely mischievous involvement of the Guardian in the Hamilton case and everyone should be aware that they will stop at nothing to support this rogue government of Blair.
This is without doubt a stitch up to scupper the inquiry by the NuLab
loving Guardian newsspeakpaper.
What will duly happen now is that the case will be thrown out by a judge because any conviction is now "unsafe".
I have heard people simplisticly saying that a crime is a crime, regardless of publicity, but the law does not work that way.
Tony and his cronies are all bloody lawyers and could get Crippen off the hook on a legal technicality.
The closer we get to the Götterdämerung the more worried I become.
It's obvious that the Guardian and their tax-to-air cousins at the BBC are doing No10's dirty work by aiding the "trial by media" defence that is now being spun.
If the CPS use that as a cop-out to avoid prosecuting then it will be a scarily precedent-setting injustice.
Hmm, a thread about crime. How long before axe-wielding murderer JHL turns up with some words of criminal wisdom?
I say chaps, do stop fretting about this "trial has been hopelessly compromised" line of argument. You are just playing into the Government's hands. Lord Levy's solicitors, and his rabbi(!)are doing a terrific PR job on his behalf. But, take it from me, if charges are preferred this trial will go ahead. No judge is going to stay the proceedings. If the evidence is there, they will have to answer it.
"It is understood that Lord Levy did not contribute any names to the lists nor offered honours to any financial backer, but was simply asked for his opinion on potential peers."
So the MP's envoy to the Middle East now has a another role in helpiing to decide who is a worthy recipient of an honour? Do 10 Downing Street not appreciate a small conflict of interest between this role and the raising of funds for the Labour Party? It would be a very poor barrister who couldn't make a strong case against Levy and Blair based on that assrtion.
It has to be said that the defence has now moved on from "they were party peerages, so thats ok" to
(get out onion)
"we deny everything. So we're not guilty but we couldn't have a fair trial (not that a trial is needed because we have done nothing different from any other government) because of the leaks and trial-by-media"
(put onion back in pocket).
For all the NuLab trolls and astro-turfers out today consider this. Do you think NuLab has fulfilled the expectations of that heady May 1st 1997?
How far short have they fallen?
Do you think to quote Blair's exact words "that we are purer than pure, that people understand that we will not have any truck with anything that is improper in any shape or form at all.
Make you weep for a wasted decade doesn't it.
TrumpeterL, I agree that no judge will stay the trial: when it reaches that stage then every brief tries the same 'too much publicity' stunt - even if you are a shoplifter and your name only appeared in the inside pages of The Obscureville News
It is the CPS who are more likely to bottle it.
How about the recent instance of a photograph of a top waif-thin model on the front page of a national newspaper with a rolled up note in her hand and a rather suspicious looking white power in front of her? Inspector Knacker politely waited for her to get back from the US, had a nice chat with her lawyers and then did nothing.
If someone took a photo of me at a party with a few ounces of Bolivian marching powder on the table then the Police aren't going to be as nice to me.
There is one rule for some, and...
I'm still convinced the CPS will be too intimidated follow this through.
I am pretty disgusted that the Guardian has got away with publishing details of the leak (how can one document become "several different sources", anyway?). It bookends nicely into Levy's "trial by media" complaint, it's almost like they planned it. It wouldn't surprise me if No. 10 did in fact make the leak, as they stand to benefit from it. However, I'm also wondering if Lord Levy is being set up as the scapegoat in this matter by the other involved parties: what proof is there that Ruth Turner is not being honest about what she thought Levy said? And oh, the BBC last night! "We couldn't tell our story, boo hoo, poor us, poor us". They spent more time on the fact that they couldn't tell the story than the story itself - boo frickin' hoo!
The mechanics of how things are done is often interesting; like a JP, self-nomination (no doubt after suitable encouragement) is how it's done. The application can be down-loaded.
'Rogue government". Exactly, and so accurately portrays the Berlusconi regime too. Thank you Vienna.
Iain, I am a little perplexed by this - but it doesn't take much. Surely the 'Levy didn't propose honours list names' is feasible in the sense that Blair would have known who Levy was, allegedly, 'tapping up' for funds ?
Blair wasn't popping over to Levy's pad when 'friends' were around because he thought they would enjoy the pleasure of his company, and may invite them over to their houses in future to admire their etchings. He must have known about, and been complicit in, the game that Levy was playing ?
You criticise that headline, but I am sure that is the 'deniability' they would have built in to that little outsourcing arrangement - if Blair then didn't nominate those people he himself would know that the funding might dry up as the game would end. If he forgot, the Levy might have to 'remind' him how much help certain people had been.
But the notion that Blair would have been oblivious to who was angling to 'help' the party before Levy had to, allegedly, 'Propose Honours List Names' doesn't tally with my take on what's happened.
But others may have a different view. Thoughts ??
vienna woods - there is no dispute that the Guardian is left of centre.
I am not sure you can necessarily prosecute your charge that they are a tool of New Labour. Certainly Polly 'Nosepeg' Toynbee has advocated votes for them in spite of any misgivings over Iraq.
But they have opposed many of the NULabour reforms such as PFI and the internal market in the NHS.
George Monbiot is certainly no Nulabour lackey and is not backwards about coming forwards with criticism about their 'green' policies. Indeed they kicked up a fuss about how Michael Meacher was shat upon from a great height by the real 'New Labour' hierarchy.
Re Anonymous 11:51 am, yes but that was then and this is now and right now they are helping to bail out Bliar and his cronies...
Politically and generally they are closer to them than they are to any of the alternatives.
geoff [11.19 AM] You say "It is the CPS who are more likely to bottle [out of a prosecution]." I'm not so sure. A timid prosecutor will often press ahead and "leave it up to the jury." That's why so many rape cases are prosecuted with no realistic prospect of conviction. Dropping a high profile case requires a little more nerve.
I share your anger that a supermodel, rich, famous and beautiful, was allowed to cock a snoot at the law. But I suppose the problem was, all they had was the photos, and no chance of analysing the substance, to prove it was a class A drug.
Good point TrumpeterL about "leave it up to the jury". The CPS person who gets this file dumped on his desk on a wet Monday morning will be under a lot of scrutiny and pressure from many sides.
Their promotion prospects and career could turn on that one decision they need to make.
I sincerely hope that you are right and I am wrong. Yes - leave it up to the jury.
Could I not very modestly refer readers to my article about this at
wrinkledweasels.blogsot.com
It may shed a little light on the odds of a prosecution being successful, and the paralells with the Libby case in the US
I wonder what was in all this for Lord Levy ... He was already a multi-squillionaire through his own efforts. He'd already bagged a P. Why did he get involved in this programme?
Does anyone here know him? I'm beginning to wonder if he's not a tragic figure. Why did he bring his own life down around his ears for a mess of pottage that he didn't need?
The recent revelations confirm only one thing - there will be no charges against either Blair or anybody in the government. The cover-up angle is a complete waste of time because, as will become clear, there has been nothing to cover up.
verity - I can't really answer your question. But look at a different angle. Why do women go for guys like John Prescott. When arguably they are not unattractive, and could pull guys younger and more attractive. It is surely that 'aphrodisiac of power'.
If one is in Lord Levy's [albeit small] shoes [with 'lifts'] money is something which anyone can have, even people with no style nor intelligence like David and Victoria Beckham. But power is a different thing. Being close to the corridors of power and decision making means one can bask in the reflected glory when Bliar gets the hat-trick at the polls. Everyone likes backing a winner and 'nothing succeeds like success'.
Verity - please give us your take on this, as the Americans and Brits have a slightly different outlook on this. I think in Britain people are always slightly dis-trustful of success - think of the phrase 'on the make, and on the take' used by George Carman QC at the libel trial of the Hamiltons. That was catchy and clingy and devastating to the couple in the dock - he knew the jury would associate success with slease quite easily in Britain.
I thought Goldsmith was rather good on WATO today pointing out how wilful The Guardian had been in its attitude - and put Sean Ley in his place
I think in Britain people are always slightly dis-trustful of success - think of the phrase 'on the make, and on the take'
Whereas Americans simply revere Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears, and swoon over Anna Nicole.....
Surely the basic point here is - only 2 people can recommend others for honours, HM The Queen and the Prime Minister.
I think we can leave Her Majesty out of this one, so that just leaves the Prime Minister, who is, God help us, Tony Blair.
If he did not know who the people were or why they were being put forward on this "Recommend for Honours" list, surely he would have asked? Who did he ask? What was said? It all comes back to TB - call me naive, but I don't see how he can shift the blame. Cover-ups now, responsibility for those can be spread around nicely - but it still has to come from the top.
Anonymous 5:40 - Women do not "go for guys like John Prescott" They go for his trappings, if I may put it so. Tracey Temple was having "an affair" - although there seems to have been absolutely no emotional involvement on Prescott's part - with the Deputy Prime Minister of Britain and was going into grace-and-favour residences and being chauffered in a ministerial car.
Power.
So you are right. Power does attract people.
You dismiss the Beckhams as oiks that have money anyone could have got, but that's not true. David Beckham is/was an immensely talented footballer. And he happens to be glamourous looking. That's quite a combination. Peple have to have something going for them to get that kind of money.
Perhaps Levy, with the fortune which he made himself, and with a peerage he probably finagled, but what's new? - did want power. Power to engage the ear of the prime minister. The power of his appointment as Blair's Special Envoy to the ME. Perhaps you're right. Perhaps it was power that sucked him into this terrible vortex.
When he first started cultivating Blair, he couldn't have known that Blair's daft and dangerous administration was going to end in tears and disgrace.
I'm not American although I partly grew up there and lived there for some of my adult life, so I won't be cheeky enough to speak for Americans; only discuss what I have observed. There is a meanness of spirit in Britain and a general resentment of success. ("Look at her! Lady Muck!") Americans are, as you note, much more comfortable with success and money.
It may be partly because there was never the squire and the serf attitude in the US, and I think that attitude has been a long time a-dying in England, although hopefully it is fading.
Rich Americans sincerely do not lord it over other people, and nor would it cross their minds to do so. They don't judge someone a failure just because they don't have much at the moment. They know he might buy the house next door to them five years from now.
Britain is beginning to get this fluidity, though.
I once heard someone say the difference in attitude was one of envy. The Brits think someone doesn't "deserve" to be rich and they would like to see that person brought down. The Americans aspire upwards: "What a fine car! Some day I'm going to drive around in one of those!"
verity - interesting stuff, but I think it is only fair to say that I wasn't putting down David Beckham myself, but merely suggesting that because of his background he would not be accepted [imho] into the kind of society that Levy likes to mingle with.
He would see the 'celebs' that are around today, many who don't even have the talent Beckham has, as being merely commodities of the kind that he used to manage in his younger days. No matter how much money they had. So the power trip is what, I think, he was after.
merely suggesting that because of his background he would not be accepted [imho] into the kind of society that Levy likes to mingle with.
You mean Beckham's wife couldn't get him an introduction to a record producer ?
Why do I not believe a word that comes out of the mouths of anyone associated with the Labour Party. This is after being a supporter for over 30 years. As for Lord Levy, the poor *** is being hung out to dry. Please, please, please give us the truth. We're all grown up, we know power is an aphrodisiac, but sleeze...pleeze
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