Saturday, December 06, 2008
Brown Leaked Sensitive Defence Documents
It's hardly surprising the Prime Minister has looked a bit uncomfortable over the Damian Green affair. Michael Gove has written an article showing how Brown leaked him documents about the future of Rosyth Dockyard in the 1980s, when he was working for Scottish Television. That, of course, did involve national security. Luckily for him (and unluckily for the nation), Maggie didn't feel the need to set the Rozzers on him.
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16 comments:
Good stuff.
Obviously this would make a good question for PMQs ....
I'm struggling to see how the Soviet Union would be able to exploit the knowledge that Maggie wanted to move as much defence spending as possible out of Labour constituencies. Nothing leaps immediately to mind.
Also still missing the conspiring/procuring angle. Otherwise another spot-on analogy.
I find this Gove article very disturbing. As a journalist, I regard the off-the-record rule as a cornerstone of my professional ethic. I appreciate that Mr Gove is not a journalist now, but I feel it is profoundly unwise and improper to unmask a source in this fashion. (Anyway, anyone who is anyone in the Scottisg media knows of our Great Leader's long-term propensity for leaking to, briefing and cultibation of pet reporters.) In Scotland, we have two serious incidents in recent years - the exposure of a Scottish Executive minister, Richard Simpson, by Jason Allardyce in 2002 for admittedly fatuous remarks about striking fire-fighters in convivial off-the-record circumstances (Simpson was forced to resign; Allardyce got Scottish Journalist of the Year); and the betrayal of a flamboyant Conservative MSP, Brian Monteith, in 2006 by the then-editor of The Scotsman, Ian Martin, who deliberately published a private email Monteith had sent him. As an immediate consequence, Monteith lost the Tory whip and his political career. As an abiding consequence, political journalism has become far more difficult and the integrity of the profession has been compromised by the opportunism of the few.
The Simpson affair was admittedly muddy: Allardyce did not name the politician he quoted (though he scarcely needed to), and Simpson could have made a better fist of the subsequent feeding-frenzy; but both incidents brought the profesion in Scotland into abiding disrepute.
Just remember guys... there is no statute of limitations for criminal offences.
Here's hoping...
WV: coctu. Is there an offer there?
John MacLeod,
Tory MPs behaving honourably? Those were the days!
I still think Brown is evil and I still think he will be brought to account. Wickedness can only keep the genie in the bottle for so long. There is now a sizeable and influential group, who have scores to settle.
I believe he instigated the Green affair. He knew what was liable to happen. It was done on the nod.
I see this as increasing desperation. Glenrothes was a sure sign that Brown was desperate. His handling of fiscal policy smacks of a concern for media manipulation first, saving the country second. Looking at the facts, that Brown was infused with the idea of leaks and leaking for political gain throughout his career, it is absurd to think he has changed his world view. He must therefore be playing the Green affair for purely Machiavellian purposes. He has presided over one of the most unruly back benches in history. Full on rebellions have only been prevented by massive last minute deals. Remember how he was bailed out by the Unionists over 42 days? Nobody believed a last minute deal had not been done.
The almost daily catalogue of half-baked "initiatives" pumped out to push other stories off the front page, and the failed, name-calling local election strategies - they are all bankrupt measures from a Government that will bankrupt us before it admits defeat and calls an election.
There is also something highly sinister, Orwellian in fact, about a Government that creates a "Freedom of Information" act, and then proceeds to thwart it at every turn.
Remember, this is the Party that lied us into a war, a party whose apparatchiks were in a philosophical arena that could call 9/11 a "good day to bury bad news".
Yes, he is evil. The sad thing is there is nobody on the political scene who is in a position to call him to account.
Weasel:
... nobody on the political scene who is in a position to call him a what?
wv: musin
"I regard the off-the-record rule as a cornerstone of my professional ethic."
Are you serious?
Why can't we see the people we pay for being brought to account on the record, regularly and publicly?
Yes, I have been highlighting this since early on after the wrongful arreast of Green!
I was first alerted to it by looking at Hansard and one of Brown's fellow Labour frontbenches said Brown was complicit in the leaks. Sadly the Frontbencher died a few years ago.
But here is the link:
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1994/may/06/rosyth-naval-base#S6CV0242P0-04027
The only way in which we have managed to get information is through the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) and through the investigative journalism of a number of newspapers. I mention in particular the Daily Record, the Evening News in Edinburgh, and The Sunday Times.
"there is nobody on the political scene who is in a position to call him to account."
No one at the BBC thats for sure.
Not sure what you mean by 'political scene'. Parliament has been turned into a waste of space by this government and PMQs is a wholly unsuitable arena to hold the PM to account - it is not properly reported anyway.
Just put your faith in the electorate.
PS Shirkingfromhome ... the off the record rule and protecting sources are cornerstones of getting more info into the public domain. Some of it tosh no doubt. But your idea that welshing on this concept would be good for information flow is to be blunt as thick as two short planks.
Jimmy and Chris Paul,
What is the new line given to you both by Lord Sleaze? Brown has a leaking history like our Thames water
pipe network. Things are coming up
about this character as the days progress. I wish he stays so that Labour with the likes of Lord Sleaze and bottler Brown disappears for a decade.
norman,
What part of my post is causing you difficulty?
Jimmy,
Perhaps you should get out more? I can think of many ways in which a foreign power that did not wish us well might be likely to find very useful information about where the UK's nuclear submarines were to be serviced.
The Penguin
You think they were otherwise unaware? Perhaps even mentioning the existence of a facility at Rosyth was treasonous?
SO, its there a statute of limitations on Brown's crimes?
HRA applies.
Whistleblowers act came in after he published leaks.
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