Muriel Gray
Two things genuinely scared me last week. The first was a television trailer for a science fiction season on BBC radio. A solemn voice, talking over the face of a sweet old man, asked us which made us more afraid; that we are alone in the universe, or that we are not. The benign face then mutated startlingly into a terrifying alien. It made me jump. Brilliant! Absolutely loved it. The second was more frightening still, but decidedly less enjoyable. It was Harriet Harman.
You'll doubtless have watched re-runs, and read in the press a dozen times by now, of what the deputy prime minister said in response to news of Sir Fred Goodwin's breathtaking pension, but it's worth printing it one more time, lest we forget. When asked how the government might amend this peculiar reward for someone who made mincemeat of one of the UK's most important financial institutions, she said this of Goodwin's arrangements: "It might be enforceable in a court of law, this contract, but it is not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that is where the government steps in."
Eh? Come again? So instead of the government adhering to one of its primary responsibilities, that of upholding the rule of law, it's now declaring that it will "step in" and legislate according to what exactly? A Daily Mail online poll? A radio talk show phone-in? An overheard conversation in the supermarket checkout queue? Where exactly is this court of public opinion of which our esteemed deputy prime minister speaks, and how does one access the public gallery to witness the proceedings?
Whatever your views on Goodwin's greedy and dishonourable conduct, it was a statement of knuckle-dragging stupidity and self-importance, and was quickly beaten to death by Gordon Brown the next day. But here's the scary thing. She meant it. Oh yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen. Even the briefest examination of that prim, dead-eyed, humourless face braying out those words assures us that this was not a slip of the tongue. This is what Harman genuinely wishes and she was terribly proud to say so.
A trained lawyer holding the second most powerful post in the country believes that her government should be able to legislate according to mob rule. For real heart-sinking anxiety, combine this with the fact that here is a politician who has presided over erosions of our civil liberties that would have been unthinkable decades ago. She wants us all to carry compulsory identity cards, because quite clearly a Hebridean grandmother is as much of a security threat as a newly arrived teenager from a radical Pakistani madras. She's helped pass legislation that can have us arrested if we dare to photograph a policeman, because that act of civil rebellion is obviously also putting society at risk. She's keen on the police keeping our DNA samples, even if we're not charged with an offence, and she supports the idea of the state having unlimited access to all our emails, telephone calls and online activity.
Yet here is the same woman telling us that the collective, outraged opinion of people responding to media commentators, and not carefully crafted and lengthily debated regulation, is what drives government to legislate. Does that make you sleep safe in your beds? What kind of hallucinatory drugs are New Labour taking that has made them stray so very far away from the values they once stood for?
Do you remember, for instance, the court of public opinion being tested rather forcefully in Scotland some years ago, when the section 28 debate ignited in the press? Donald Dewar's newly devolved parliament realised the importance of resisting massive media pressure heaped on them to condemn homosexuality by keeping in place a vile little piece of legislation that was long overdue for repeal, forbidding gay and transgender issues being discussed in schools when appropriate.
The Scottish government boldly resisted, and a good thing too. For it transpired that there was no genuine consensus of "public opinion" there at all. It was simply a millionaire with unpalatable views trying to buy his way into power, a publicity hungry Cardinal trying to get more personal attention, and a tabloid newspaper desperately trying to fight off its English right-wing rival. The public were horrified by the repugnant, homophobic campaign. Many showed themselves to be so by stopping buying the paper in question, and the majority supported the government's position. Hooray for Scotland, but it was a contemptible little test.
Clearly stripping a banking fat cat of morally unjust, but perfectly legal remuneration is quite different from hounding and marginalising innocent gay citizens. But it's a fair bet that if consulted formally, the wider public (considerably wiser than the small cross-section of rabid correspondents Harman is listening to), would not support special legislation to single out and punish one man. Where would we stop? Rail track bosses? CEO of the failing Post Office? What about an ex-prime minister responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in an illegal war? Does that particular "professional failure" deserve a sizeable pension more than financial recklessness? Goodwin never broke the law. Blair did.
Harman's revolting promise to follow a populist line, while her party continues to strip the public of its rights, is yet another manifestation of New Labour's loss of confidence and insight. Even more depressing is how clichéd the rot of their administration is becoming, falling back as it is on all those old, unoriginal manifestations of decay, such as increased authoritarianism and decreased adherence to individual freedoms and law.
Hence far scarier than an old man turning into an alien before our eyes is the sight of the deputy prime minister mutating from haughty schoolmarm into a slavering peasant with a pitchfork, howling up at the castle walls backed by an angry rabble waving their flaming torches. But just as there are no aliens, this horror too will subside.
Happily for all of us there is indeed a genuine court of public opinion. It's called a general election.
