October | 2010 | Westminster Confidential

David Kelly:Leave to rest in peace

Sad to say Dominic Grieve’s decision not to hold a further inquest into the death of David Kelly is the right one. A very detailed letter from Lord Hutton, to the Attorney General and published on the Attorney General Office’s website this week seems to be clinching evidence that a new inquest would not reveal anything that we do not know already. You can find it by scrolling through the reports on this link http://bit.ly/mfQPPo. He seems to make quite a convincing case that Dr Kelly’s death was investigated to a higher standard than happens at a normal coroner’s inquest. Also as I said earlier the quality of the expertise of the investigators could not have been higher, even if the press at the time ignored what had been released as the issue was dominated by Andrew Gilligan’s reports over the Iraq War.

By publishing the pathologist’s report last October to my mind had already laid to rest some of the more ludicrous conspiracy theories, including one by the present transport minister, Norman Baker.

As I wrote at the time(October 23, 2010)

The pathologist’s report into the death of Dr David Kelly, the scientist at the centre of the row over whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, should finally lay to rest conspiracy theorists’ views that he was murdered by the security services.

The report provides harrowing detail of the self-inflicted wounds he sustained and no evidence whatsoever that he had been attacked or fought off attackers.

Unfortunately the failure to publish the report by Lord Hutton’s investigation in 2004 and the decision to keep it secret for 70 years fuelled conspiracy theories that it was a gigantic cover up.

Yet careful examination of the evidence given by Roy Green, a forensic biologist and crime scene specialist, to the Hutton Inquiry on 3 September 2003 – it is still on the inquiry website- will show that many of the details in the pathologist’s report today were made public at the time.( http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/transcripts/hearing-trans29.htm)

It would also be extraordinary that Lord Hutton and the inquiry secretary Lee Hughes, who forced the PM’s aggressive press secretary, Alistair Campbell, to release his private diaries and the intelligence agencies to publish internal Whitehall minutes should be suborned by the government to suppress evidence of a murder. The Hutton inquiry, whatever one feels about its findings, was one of the most open and transparent investigations ever held – and its secretary, is an unsung hero in Whitehall in pressing for a freedom of information act.

The explanation is much more mundane – Lord Hutton wanted to safeguard the privacy of Kelly’s family – but even he knew at the time that his request could be overruled because of the Freedom of Information Act.

The real scandal is not the conspiracy to cover up a murder but the fact that it has distracted everyone from the appalling behaviour of Tony Blair’s administration in using every means possible to silence journalists and investigators from finding out the truth about the government’s lies over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and their threat to Britain.

Number Ten effectively used the naming of David Kelly to browbeat the BBC and blacken the reputation of Andrew Gillighan, a journalist trying to get to the bottom of the facts, and then were horrified when Kelly took his life.

But as someone who has to deal with moles, some can take a lot of shock and awe but others have to be treated with kid gloves, because their consciences tell them the public should know the facts but they are terrified of being exposed.

Kelly, from his performance before MPs, was obviously in the latter group and the fact that he was about to be exposed for lying to MPs that he had talked to another journalist, Susan Watts, was enough for him to kill himself.

The security services did not need to murder Kelly – even if they had wanted to do so, which is highly unlikely – he became sadly another tragic victim of the Iraq War because he couldn’t take the strain of being exposed to such a massive media circus.

The real tragedy is that we have wasted six years going up a blind alley which might be great sport for conspirators, but we have let the people who drove this decent man to his death, escape any retribution for their actions and for not telling the people the truth. Hutton’s conclusion in this respect left them off the hook. I would be surprised whether the Chilcot inquiry – which has been far less open about releasing documents does any better.

This blog was first published on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website. For lots of responses see that site.

Ed Miliband: The need to be ruthless and brave Pic: courtesy peoplesrepublicofsouthdevon

Journos love a drama and nothing better than a fratricidal battle between two brothers. But the coverage by my colleagues of ” Red” versus ” Dead ” Miliband has been well over the top.

Basically the argument goes like this. Ed has already been defined by his enemies as red in tooth and claw, only in power because of the machinations of union barons who duped their members into supporting him to ditch his brilliant elder brother.

Now with Joe Public well briefed – and with only that difficulty over spending cuts which a public will reluctantly accept after being told Labour is to blame – the Tories will be able to romp home in four years time. Just offer the squeezed middle classes big tax cuts from selling off the banks.

This cartoon portrayal is likely to go badly wrong. I have no inside knowledge of the Ed Miliband team but I do talk to a lot of contacts who deal with him – and if he is astute enough he has a winning card.

Some people are obviously up to a job, others grow into it. Ed is the latter. As a special adviser to Gordon he seemed frightened of the media. As a Cabinet Office minister the Whitehall view was that he was indecisive about what to do. But as climate change and energy secretary, Whitehall revised their opinion. He took them on over emission targets and won, and there is nothing more they like than a minister with a firm agenda.

It was similar in the leadership election campaign. His address to the Parliamentary Lobby lunch was OK, but lacked blood and fire. But through the large number of hustings, his performance improved and he was steadily winning the argument. It is a myth to say that he won the vote because only union bosses backed him. It was his arguments that convinced the individual union members to vote for him and pushed the leaders into backing him. David Miliband – as an article about to appear in The Journalist will reveal – campaigned equally ferociously with the unions but lost the argument.

So where does that leave him? For a start with four years to establish his personality, policies and identity thanks to fixed term Parliaments. The mood music will then be quite different. We are still in the phoney war over the cuts and higher taxes. From January when VAT goes up, we will face a rolling programme of higher taxes, lower benefits and unthinkable cuts to public services- defended equally by two major coalition parties.

His first speech suggests that he will fight a number of the cuts but not offer to restore every one. He will have to be fleet footed, ruthless, know his own mind and be able to create not just an alternative policy but an alternative narrative that can be believed by the general public. On some issues he will need to be brave, because the policy may not be instantly popular. He needs to use focus groups not just to tell him what people think but how he can influence people to think differently.

He should not underestimate his main opponent David Cameron. Behind the public relations manner is a ruthless brain – just look at how he handled the expenses saga, leaving Gordon looking flat footed.

One Tory contact of mine at the conference – who I have known for years- had a chilling insight into the right wing agenda. He said he did not mind if it was a one term coalition – because by 2015 they would have dismantled so much of the state – that a Labour government would never have the money to put it back. His money comes from the Far East and the oil rich states surrounding Russia- so he doesn’t care if the UK does not really prosper – as he thinks India and China will be the wealthy power houses of the future. That if nothing else should be warning to Ed of what he has got to do.