Quality | 2010.02.06
Hugh Muir's diary
Another fine mess? Not at all said Jack. But that was then. This is now
• With Tony Blair due to face the Chilcot inquiry today, and after a long week of troubling revelations, it seems reasonable to ask: just what was the quality of the legal advice in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq? Lord Goldsmith, as we know, flip-flopped all over the place, bullied by Downing Street, mesmerised by Condi Rice in Washington. Legal advisers at the Foreign Office were listened to, but not heard. And what was Jack Straw (pictured) saying? Well, we know that he ignored the warnings from his advisers, but we know more than that. For in the high summer of 2003 – in the days of "shock and awe" – he was also to be found working a room at his official residence in Carlton Gardens on the occasion of Michael Foot\'s 90th birthday party. And banishing all doubts, though many raised them. The night is well remembered by the writer Robert Giddings, who recalls: "I turned to him, and in the best Ollie Hardy voice I could manage, fluttering my imaginary tie, I said: "Here\'s another fine mess you\'ve gotten us into." Smiling, he replied: "Oh! It\'ll all turn out alright in the end, you\'ll see!"
• Ever the optimist; as is Nick Clegg. And why shouldn\'t he be, with experts all expecting a hung parliament. On Tuesday, as Clegg addressed the Institute for Government , floating the not obviously populist issue of protection for civil service whistleblowers, the room was full to bursting. And so was the overflow room, to which the speech was transmitted on a giant screen. And those watching the screen were applauding, even though Clegg himself was in the other room. Heady days for true believers. Go back to your constituencies. Let the horse trading begin.
• Conversely, we see long faces at Scotland Yard as Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson prepares for life in the shadow of Kit Malthouse, Boris Johnson\'s newly appointed, unelected, chair of the Met Police Authority. The man who has already boasted that Boris\'s team of politicos and wonks, rather than the police officers, have their "hands on the tiller" at the Met. And what a good choice he is. "I\'m sure that other members of the police authority here will be full of congratulations for Kit and what he has achieved," said Boris, proudly unveiling the new arrangement to the London Assembly. The result; silence. Even from the Tories. "Oh come on, let\'s have a bit of enthusiasm from you guys," wailed Boris. They were just too thrilled to speak.
• "I hope there are no journalists here," said Stephen Garrett , the wonderboy of British TV drama and newly installed professor of broadcast media at his alma mater, Oxford University. And why, because the brain behind Spooks, Hustle and Life on Mars was just about to rip into the dunderheads who ruined his push into America. Life on Mars USA, he said, was a "complete mess, a horror story". The American producers simply did not get it, even after 17 episodes. "They lost the physicality and made a hash of it," he said, obviously bitter. As for the "no journalists" thing. We\'re sorry.
• Finally, little goes right for Labour nowadays but its leaders persist in blaming everyone but themselves. Occasionally, Ed Balls struggles to get his children to school on time. He tells Miranda Sawyer, host of the Guardian\'s new Family podcast , why that is. "The Today programme are really disciplined about the time slots at 7.30am and at 8am. But at 8.30am, they are so lax; louche about the way they do it. So you think the sport is on at 8.28am, then the news at 8.30am. And you can be there thinking it\'s all fine because the sport is on and then suddenly they will say, \'It\'s 8.38, we\'re going to news\'. And you think, \'What happened to the eight minutes?\' It\'s a disaster. I just wish that the Today discipline at 7.30am and 8am would carry on to 8.30am." Or he could buy a watch. Just a thought.
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