The Lunatics Who Run The Asylum

Dear Diary,

Whilst the Cabinet pass round the hookah (spelling is so important these days), it is as well to see what reaction there is to the distressing fact that becoming a Lord after giving money to politicians is not a crime.

The Observer summed up the standard view nicely: “Had Scotland Yard taken only a cursory look at the evidence and called off the search it would have created the impression that politicians are above the law.” Well, up to a point Lord Copper Roger Alton.

The reality is that the police investigated an allegation which a minor SNP politician wished to be true. That person’s belief in justice can be gauged from his reaction to the outcome of the investigation. Mr MacNeil believes it extraordinary that there are no charges. Just consider dear Diary: when wee Angus made his complaint and asked for it to be fairly and properly investigated would he have considered it quite extraordinary if charges had been brought? Presumably not. Why, then, this puzzlement when there turns out to be nothing in what he says? Of course, as a politician of any description, still less an SNP politician, it cannot be a surprise to him that he has said something so fanciful that it should be laughed at. But what of others, who really should know better?

The problem with The Observer’s stance, as it seems to me, is that the need to investigate such an allegation is created not by the need to avoid the impression that politicans are above the law, but by the willingness of the Fourth Estate to allege precisely that. Consider dear Diary, the origin of the whole story. The Labour Party did not declare some loans it had received. Some of the lenders were then nominated for an honour. That was enough for wee Angus. But, is it too fanciful to suggest that in this particular case someone should have spotted that 2+2 did not always make 5? Should not someone in authority at the Met have decided that it was not the job of the police to assist in fulfilling the wish-list of a minor politician? After all, Fraud Squads (insofar as they still exist) regularly ask complainants for the evidence to justify even beginning an investigation. What is the difference here, if not the sexiness of the story?

Mistrust sells papers. Thus it is that papers now mistrust everybody. Yet, when reality finally takes hold there is no printed mea culpa. Rather, the pose is that the investigation was necessary, presumably so that the climate of mistrust created by publicity can be dispelled by publicity. Guess who benefits?

For it is a sad thought dear Diary, that anyone exercising the slightest influence over public life today must be publicly dissected and criticised. Except, for owners, editors and journalists that is. Is there, for example, a serious call to investigate why the BBC felt it appropriate to misuse money received from public funds to promote an untruth about the Queen? Indeed not: the comment is confined to personal sniping and glee. Equally, the BBC permitted anti-semitic comments on its website for days last week and yet that seems not to have been the subject of debate at all; how curious. Of course, the Beeb’s response was to remove the posting of those who complained about the original message; a grubby reaction which seems, somehow, to have been missed by the News at 10.

Of course, dear Diary, I am not suggesting for a second that a free press is a bad thing. There is no doubt that the constant scrutiny of journalists helps to ensure that the great and the good stay in line. Rather, my complaint is twofold. Firstly, that such scrutiny is selectively applied and that it is too often applied to the pathetic, the weak and the frankly irrelevant and is actively resisted by one class of potential scrutinee; namely journalists themselves. Secondly, that investigation is too often confused with guessing, particularly when such confusion might assist.

Plainly, Governments must not control the press. However, the Courts may be able to bring some order and fairness to this difficult area. In any event, in future, would it be too much to ask that PC Plod engaged his brain and concluded that a criminal investigation announced by a politician to the press before anything had actually happened was likely to be a stunt? Or that Assistant Commissioner Plod found it within himself to suggest that really, really wanting something to be true was not evidence and that evidence was required before spending such a lot of our money. Still, I am sure that the press will be prepared to refund the police budget some of their profits. That way, perhaps, it may be possible to actually catch some criminals.