Simon Carr: Trust him, he's the Justice Secretary ... Oh, if only we could
Sketch: We know that ministerial assurances at the despatch box aren't worth the air they're breathed into
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Independent Minds
"There's no reason not to trust me," Jack Straw told the House of Commons. He wouldn't dare say that in public.
He's into the later stages of his Coroner's Bill, the device by which he sought to introduce secret inquests to this country – proposals that were "parodied as secret inquests", he said, in the midst of his half-hour of baffling waffle.
He has a problem, everyone seems to agree. Some intercept evidence cannot be revealed at inquests for fear of letting unsuitable jurors have material that could damage national security.
Remembering that there's no reason not to trust the Justice Secretary, you might lean back on your heels and sympathise with him. It's only prejudice that bounces you into an automatic disbelief. But then Bob Marshall-Andrews asked him how many cases this problem represented.
One.
There is this problem in one case in the past five years.
Elfyn Llywd asked again why public interest immunity certificates couldn't resolve his difficulty. He was told such certificates were only available if they wouldn't lead to an injustice. Better, then, to do away with the jury altogether.
After all, the number of inquests it would apply to are vanishingly rare and there is absolutely no intention among the police, the Government, the Justice Secretary himself (he said) to widen the use of the secret inquest. And as we knew by then, there was no need not to trust the minister.
But why weren't these safeguards and restrictions put into the Bill? We know that ministerial assurances at the despatch box aren't worth the air they're breathed into. But that was "very difficult".
And his praise of "senior judges" caused Marshall-Andrews to become sarcastic: "He adulates the higher judiciary only when withdrawing jury trial" – normally he was criticising them for their unelected arrogance in thwarting the intentions of the Government.
Mark Durkan again roused the Irish in his voice (it always gives the place a good shock) to talk about "the real problem which is of grieving and aggrieved families", those who will be bereaved by an official killing and won't be allowed in to the inquest. He talked of the Prime Minister "off in Berlin celebrating the end of state control and state secrecy" – and didn't the Justice Secretary feel "just a little uncomfortable" putting something like this through the House?
Truth be told, Jack did look uncomfortable, stammering and wandering through his case. "I've been up hill and down dale on this," he said, but still he seemed to be in the wrong place with these "massive new powers" being handed to the executive.
"They are not massive new powers, and they would be used extremely sparingly," the Justice Secretary said.
Oh, if only there were no reason not to trust him.
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Comments
In Orwellian terms, exactly right. That's how things work these days in Labourland, invert every statement, promise, and there is the truth.
And the sad thing is there is no way the incoming goverment will repeal this law.
A lot of us will remember Jack Straw as the the long-term president of the National Union of Students, an active and vocal communist. He had tenure of that job, it seemed, much as his bosom-pal, Arthur Scargill had at the NUM. Way, way beyond the age when the term 'student' was appropriate for him, he schemed and plotted away for the 'cause'. Then, suddenly, he morphed into a proper politician, lurched to the middle ground and dropped his former beliefs and renounced the old extremism. That now looks like just what it was, bare-faced opportunism. For as NuLabour disappears down the plughole of history, Straw reverts to what he knows best - authoritarianism. I don't know the likelihood of him being booted out of his Blackburn constituency, but I hope he is. His, is the second most irritating face in the cabal currently running the shop.
When questioned as to what would happen if they were not found, you refused to answer the question and replied with a smirk, 'Let's just wait and see shall we,' as if you had some inside knowledge to which the rest of parliament was not privy.
If Iraq is Blair's legacy, Weapons of Mass Destruction is yours.
Since then you have tried to abandon trial by jury in many cases and introduce a vast number of undemocratic laws without getting them discussed in parliament.
Now, with the timely reminder of the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Stazi, there has never been a better time to remember your deed and to doubt your word.
Britain doesn't need your type of politician and England deserves better than you.
No, you are not to be trusted. You will always be remembered as 'WMD Straw,' and you still haven't had the guts to apologise for that mis-information. Why should anybody trust you? You forfeited that right a long time ago and let down some of your more honourable colleagues at the same time.
Never a man to listen to the electorate let us hope that they make you listen at the next election but I expect that in that event, you will find yourself a safe billet in the House of Lords.
I wouldn't trust you to feed my cat.
At the moment we are watched when out & about by face recognition cameras, our movements are recorded in our cars by number-plate recognition cameras, & if we are unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time we'll have our DNA taken & kept on a database; & that's just 3 of the many ways you keep tabs on us.
Mr Straw, trust is a 2 way street!
What on earth do the compliant New Labour toadies who vote for this stuff take in their coffee to numb out the pain? Or is a concience and a requirement to think no longer part of the needed equipment for an MP?