Lord Stevenson
Media coverage of four senior bankers arraigned before the Treasury Select Committee in February centred on whether the representatives of the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS would utter the word ‘sorry’ about behaviour that has landed the British taxpayer in the soup. In what appeared to be a well-rehearsed effort, all duly apologised, left Westminster, and their story largely died with their exit, although their activities will haunt public finances and job prospects for many years to come. Unknown to most people seeing the pictures of the four penitents would be the grey countenance of Lord Stevenson of Coddenham, who had retired as chairman of HBOS in 2008.
What the mainstream media did not mention was that Stevenson was no stranger to the Palace of Westminster. In 2000 he was appointed by Tony Blair to chair the new House of Lords Appointments Commission, a job that included vetting the propriety of nominees to the upper house and to the Honours List. While sitting in the Lords as a crossbencher, Stevenson has been a key figure in the New Labour network, as friend and supporter of Blair and Peter Mandelson, and with deep involvement in Demos and the British American Project among other groupings.
The North-East redoubt of New Labour was where Stevenson cut his teeth as a young man, taking over the leadership of the Peterlee and Newton Aycliffe new towns from T. Dan Smith during the Heath years. From there he developed the SRU business, which later gave work to Mandelson, and had senior positions in PR and publishing as well as banking before his ‘apology’ to MPs earlier this year.(1)
Murray’s moment
Appearing before another Parliamentary committee two months later was Craig Murray, our former ambassador to Uzbekistan, although you would have struggled to find out from the press. Murray, it will be remembered, raised concerns about torture in Uzbekistan and lost his job amid much smearing of his private life. He stood in the 2005 general election against then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and has since become Rector of the University of Dundee. Once the use of torture in the production of intelligence became an issue parliamentarians could no longer ignore, Murray hoped he would be called to give evidence to the Joint Human Rights Committee investigating precisely that subject. After much delay he was finally invited to give his evidence in April.(2)
No newspaper reported his dramatic revelations about the way the Blair government had changed policy to permit the use of intelligence material gained by torture. The BBC provided the only report I could see.
The Quick and the dead
Thanks to Craig Murray,(3) I twigged why Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick might have been photographed with the plan for suspect arrests that led to his resignation as head of counter-terrorism. Murray suggests that it was because Quick was using the much-photographed front door of No 10 Downing Street rather than one of several more discreet entrances. And why might that be, one sceptically wonders, when the beleaguered Prime Minister was badly in need of some diverting publicity? None of those arrested in Quick’s raid later that day were subsequently charged.
A few weeks before the public expressed its revulsion over MPs’ allowances and expenses revealed by The Daily Telegraph, a paper much more associated with promoting New Labour over the past 20 years ran into a little loathing of its own. The occasion was the publication in The Guardian of a piece by Tony Blair about Sierra Leone. Contributors to the paper’s online ‘Comment is Free’ blog quickly found their comments were a little too free for CiF editor Matt Seaton.
On arrival at the office Seaton wrote:
‘Good morning, campers. I’m afraid it’s not a very good morning here, though. Please do not use this thread simply to vent spleen and post abuse of Tony Blair. It’s not funny or clever; it’s just boring, as well as pointlessly vacuuming up our moderators’ time and attention. The topics of this thread are Sierra Leone, development and Africa. If people persist in using it to post abuse of Tony Blair, we will judge that as off-topic and, if that’s all that’s going on here, then we will close the thread peremptorily.’
After two-thirds of the postings were then removed by the moderators, Seaton delivered on his admonition about abuse of the former PM: ‘Sorry, folks, but you were warned. The “fun” is over, and this thread is closing.’
Godsons
Will the thread ever close on the Godson family who have featured regularly in Lobster over the years? Father of the clan, Joe, was Hugh Gaitskell’s ally at the US embassy and in an active retirement from the diplomatic service continued to influence British politicians through his work at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. One son Roy, a close friend of CIA chief William Casey, continued in a similar line of work with British trade unionists, while also having a hand in the Iran-Contra affair. Other son Dean, whose journalistic career at The Daily Telegraph prospered mightily under Conrad Black after serving as a defence assistant in the Reagan Administration, wrote a biography of David Trimble, and is now research director of the Policy Exchange. In that capacity Godson fronted its 2007 publication of The Hijacking of British Islam. Policy Exchange has now had to admit some its allegations were unsubstantiated.(4) Are there more Godsons in line to add to the family’s half-century contribution to British political life?
Notes
- An excellent analysis of Stevenson – like David Sainsbury (see Lobster 56), an important figure behind the scenes in British politics about whom little has appeared in the British press – is at <http://pinkindustry.wordpress.com/lord-stevenson/.> Stevenson is the figure on the left of the picture that tops William Clark’s posting.
- Murray’s evidence can be viewed at <http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?q=Craig%20Murray&hl=en&tab=nv#>
- Murray posts a lively blog at <www.craigmurray.org.uk>
- For the apology and Godson’s 2007 ‘Newsnight’ performance, see Sunny Hundal’s ‘Liberal Conspiracy’ story at <www.liberalconspiracy.org/2009/03/30/exclusive-policy-exchange-forced-to-apologise-takes-report-off-website/>