Muriel Gray
Opening the excellent Glasgow Film Festival this year was a film by Scotland's comedy genius Armando Iannucci. In The Loop, a brilliant and hilarious cinematic development of the hit TV show In The Thick Of It, follows a group of politicians and their civil servants, in both Westminster and Washington, shambling their way into war in the Middle East more as a result of their own petty career ambitions than any vision of global morality. In a question-and-answer session after the movie, Armando made an observation that was as chilling as it was funny.
His point was that in all the fictional representations of Washington he'd seen, from The West Wing to President Harrison Ford, the reality of political machinations is never accurately represented because its truth is too mundane. What turns world events is not a star chamber full of principled intellects fearlessly fighting their corners, but just a bunch of what Armando described as "crap little people, really bad at their jobs, trying not to be found out".
This is bad news indeed. But it is news on a par with the days getting longer in spring. Each year in Scotland, around this time, we express amazement and surprise that it's still light at 5pm, despite the fact that it has happened every single year of our lives. It's clearly ridiculous, but where is the Scot who can claim never to have held such a conversation? Similarly, when politicians prove themselves to be exactly as Armando describes, we find ourselves equally surprised. What? You mean they lied to us? They're rubbish? They're stupid? This cannot be! But we voted for them and everything!
Take this week's events for example. In a staggeringly display of stinking, repugnant corruption, Jack "final" Straw banged the last nail into the coffin of moribund, corrupt and morally bankrupt New Labour, and what did we do? We blinked in amazement.
Straw's excuse for vetoing the Freedom Of Information Act, that would have allowed publication of Cabinet meeting minutes leading up to the Iraq war, is that it would destroy the ability of ministers to engage in "full, frank and robust discussion, safe in the knowledge that their individual views will not be disclosed".
Are we missing something? Much is made of how important it is that "the tradition" of Cabinet confidentiality be respected, but surely when Cabinet ministers attend a meeting they are not operating as individuals but as elected representatives of the people. Just because it's a tradition doesn't make it right. Why, exactly, should their individual views not be disclosed? If ministers wish to have confidential, frank discussions together as individuals, then they should do so in a private place of their choice. But when they attend a formal Cabinet meeting they should properly be accountable for every word they say, as they are speaking entirely on our behalf.
If debate is open on the floor of The Commons why is it closed in the Cabinet? Why do they imagine that the position of Cabinet minister grants them the right to conceal their views? If nothing else, such behaviour leaves them open to our worst suspicions. Is it confidential because they are repugnant views? Is it because they are wrong and stupid, or that they reveal beliefs and values contrary to the public declarations of the individual minister? Surely any one of those would demand immediate disclosure, not privacy. Or is it, more likely, because such revelation might expose misjudgement, errors, or worse, humiliating dishonesty?
It is already the case that Cabinet minutes made public are less than revealing, skipping lightly over the discussions of the attendees without properly chronicling the details of debate. What then to fear from the Iraq discussions? If anything, this scandal should make us demand even more openness and transparency instead of accepting Straw's hopeless and entirely unconvincing bleatings about "ruining discussion". And all this from the party that promised openness and accountability.
It's a common feature of New Labour's death throes that Straw imagines anyone would be fooled by his preposterous excuses. What we perceive instead, is that in Orwellian fashion the "justice" minister vetoes the Freedom Of Information Act entirely to protect himself from censure over his part in taking us into an illegal war when acting as home secretary.
And that unavoidable perception, in addition to every other wrong and dreadful thing Labour have done over the last few years, is why we find ourselves without any shadow of a doubt facing a Conservative government next year in Westminster, and a Scottish government in Holyrood with a Labour opposition as effective as an ashtray on a motorbike.
Who will vote for an administration that wants to curtail our personal freedoms in the most alarming manner, that stifles protest and exploits fear to increase state control? Will we support a government that bails out bankers and sells out the Post Office; that is so confused over liberty that it is considering tolerating gender separation in public places for "culturally sensitive" reasons?
Who wishes a government that has forgotten its solemn promises about education and health and poverty in favour of saving its own sorry skin; spending more time telling lies and spinning truths than trying to find solutions to the increasing distress of its citizens? And where can the disenfranchised, betrayed Labour voter go now, who desired a party that would strive to alleviate poverty, increase prosperity and promote equality and freedom?
Charming and modern as Cameron may be, the old-school, unreconstructed, greedy, corrupt Tories are slavering in the shadows at his back. And promising as some of the SNP's governance might have been so far, Salmond's readiness to be bought by dubious opportunists and the increasing activity of nationalist online cyber-thugs make this newly floating voter far too nervous to commit. The Lib Dems are just silly, the Greens, according to James Lovelock, are 50 years too late, and Armando Iannucci is horribly, demonstrably right. But having nowhere left to turn as a voter simply isn't funny.
