A new Mr Blair? He's just like the old one

Mr Tony Blair's appearance last week before a committee of workers, peasants and intellectuals has been hailed as one of the seven new wonders of the constitutional world. It is difficult to see why. The body in question consists of the chairmen of the select committees. It goes by the name of the Liaison Committee. At least I think it does. The group interviewing the Prime Minister – "interviewing" seems more the right word than "questioning" – may regard itself as an ad hoc body, set up for this specific purpose. Mr Blair graciously promises a repeat performance in six months' time, when passions have cooled and the excitement has died down.

The curious thing is that the chairmen who sat around popping the odd question already possess the power to summon the Prime Minister to appear before the committees over which they preside. They have the same power to summon any other minister. But, dominated by the Whips, they are afraid to use it. Their power is, in the hallowed phrase, "to send for persons and papers". Members of the Government are not excluded. If they fail to show, their disobedience can be reported to the House, which can then take such disciplinary action as it thinks fit.

No one has ended up recently either in Brixton or in the cell under Big Ben which is, or used to be, maintained for this purpose. But the threat is there. It is still employed, usually in an arbitrary manner. Committees take up subjects which are briefly in the news, irrespective of whether they are qualified to investigate them or can do anything about them but, rather, to gain publicity and prove themselves "relevant".

We see examples every week. But it is not a new development. The present system is largely the creation of Norman St John-Stevas when he was Leader of the House after 1979. Even so, the old committees too liked to throw their weight about where ordinary members of the public rather than ministers were concerned.

For instance, my old colleague Mr Adam Raphael had a scoop about the payment of starvation wages by British firms to black workers in South Africa. This was no doubt a very bad thing to do. It aroused a lot of comment in the public prints and elsewhere. The Trade and Industry Committee under William, now Lord, Rodgers, decided to get in on the act. Assorted captains of industry were duly summoned to be harassed and abused. While it was no doubt gratifying for some to see people who had spent their lives bullying other people being bullied themselves for a change, there was no real justification for the exercise. What the committee was doing was jumping on to a passing bandwagon.

Such attempts can sometimes lead to a slip and a nasty fall. When a committee tried to interview the Maxwell brothers about the pensions scandal and other murky matters, they brought along the late George Carman QC to advise them. As far as I know, no one had thought of hiring a barrister before. Certainly in the old Committee of Privileges, now the Standards and Privileges Committee, a miscreant was liable to be bullied by the Attorney General himself with no legal representation of his own. This is what happened to the great John Junor, editor of the Sunday Express, who was compelled to apologise at the bar of the House for his paper's entirely justified observations on MPs' favourable treatment of themselves over petrol rationing in the Suez debacle.

The Maxwell brothers were treated more gently. Carman advised them to keep quiet, not to answer any questions, which was what they proceeded to do. No harm befell them. By contrast, Mr Kelvin MacKenzie, lately editor of The Sun, did not keep at all quiet when he appeared before the then Culture, Media and Sport Committee. On the contrary: he proved unstoppable, and succeeded in making the legislators look foolish. What rendered his achievement the more remarkable was that the chairman was Mr Gerald Kaufman, who could have been held in reserve by the Inquisition for the really hard cases.

"We are sorry you are adopting this unhelpful attitude but, if you persist in it, we shall have no alternative but to send you to ..."

"No, not Father Kaufman."

"We are afraid it must be so, but the remedy is entirely in your own hands."

For whatever reason, Mr Kaufman was not present at last week's gathering. Had he been there, he would have been in a dilemma. He may not be the most penetrating chairman but he is certainly the rudest, the Dr David Starkey of the committee corridor. On the floor of the House, however, he is the most loyal of backbenchers, who makes Ms Hazel Blears – I speak of the days before she got a job – appear a rebel.

Whichever version of Mr Kaufman had been on display, we may be sure Mr Blair would have been entirely comfortable. The new Mr Blair is exactly like the old one, only more so. He takes off his coat – what is now, even in refined circles, called his jacket – and appears friendly but competent. This, by the way, is the uniform enforced by Mr Paul Dacre in his reign of terror at the Daily Mail. It is professional death there to go about your daily tasks with your coat on; or so I am reliably informed.

The only point of substance to emerge from the lengthy interview was in answer to a question by Mr Donald Anderson. It was that Mr Blair was more than ready to follow Mr George Bush into darkest Iraq. On the following day he said at Prime Minister's Questions that our support would naturally be conditional on the observance of international law. As Mr Bush is the first President since Theodore Roosevelt not to give a fig for international law, this puts a different complexion on a matter which may yet split Labour and, conceivably, bring down Mr Blair.

Certainly the new forum is no substitute for PMQs which, so far from being an ancient part of the constitution, go back only to 1961. Nor is it a substitute for the powers which the chairmen could themselves exercise but choose not to. It was monstrous when Harold Wilson prohibited Harold Lever from appearing before a committee to try to justify the Government's handout to the Chrysler corporation. It was more monstrous still when Mr Blair served notice that special advisers would not be allowed to give evidence to a committee, for they are not even members of the Government.

But then, some odd things have been happening lately. The House restored Mr Anderson and Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody to their respective chairmanships after an attempt to remove them had been made by the Whips. The House, with the ostensible support of Mr Robin Cook, went on to take away the Whips' power to appoint the chairmen. This has now been reversed, with the support of the Conservatives. What on earth are they playing at? And where stands Mr Cook?