Tuesday, December 19, 2006 AD
Here's a phrase to conjure with: Lord Goldsmith's "explanation" of the decision to halt the anti-corruption investigation into BAE in response to an ultimatum from the Saudi government:
As a letter to the Guardian pointed out, "the rule of law should not be 'balanced' against 'the wider public interest': the rule of law is the public interest". But Tony Blair - ever the constitutional innovator - clearly regards the rule of law as equivalent to the ministerial code of conduct: useful up to a point, but not something that should be allowed to stand in the way of a busy prime minister with things to get done.
The alternative explanation - trying, like a good Lutheran, to follow the eighth commandment and explain everything in the kindest possible way - is that Lord Goldsmith was not offering an explanation, but making a cry for help; that he was sending out a subtext that he realised how iniquitous this decision was, and was alerting people to the threat it represented to the rule of law. Well, er, maybe.
Setting such speculations aside, I was trying to find a suitable comparison that didn't involve breaking Godwin's Law. It was my wife who nailed it: "It sounds like the sort of thing Robert Mugabe would say".
Update: An excellent suggestion from Daniel S. Ketelby in the comments, who suggests that "it's a Capricorn One statement - an apparently innocuous mistake or mis-statement used in hostage situations to signal to loved ones that all is not well."
"It has been necessary to balance the need to maintain the rule of law against the wider public interest."Just let that one roll around inside your brain for a few moments. I've been brooding over that sentence for the past few days, and it doesn't get any less depressing with time.
As a letter to the Guardian pointed out, "the rule of law should not be 'balanced' against 'the wider public interest': the rule of law is the public interest". But Tony Blair - ever the constitutional innovator - clearly regards the rule of law as equivalent to the ministerial code of conduct: useful up to a point, but not something that should be allowed to stand in the way of a busy prime minister with things to get done.
The alternative explanation - trying, like a good Lutheran, to follow the eighth commandment and explain everything in the kindest possible way - is that Lord Goldsmith was not offering an explanation, but making a cry for help; that he was sending out a subtext that he realised how iniquitous this decision was, and was alerting people to the threat it represented to the rule of law. Well, er, maybe.
Setting such speculations aside, I was trying to find a suitable comparison that didn't involve breaking Godwin's Law. It was my wife who nailed it: "It sounds like the sort of thing Robert Mugabe would say".
Update: An excellent suggestion from Daniel S. Ketelby in the comments, who suggests that "it's a Capricorn One statement - an apparently innocuous mistake or mis-statement used in hostage situations to signal to loved ones that all is not well."
Labels: appeasement, merchants of death, politics
