22.02.1996

Corrupt system limps on

Sir Richard Scott’s long-awaited report on government double-dealings makes one thing crystal clear. His 2,000-page document may well be a devastating indictment of John Major’s already discredited and incompetent administration, but it does nothing to call into question the stability of the British state itself.

Britain’s bourgeois democracy has always been based on separating a handful of inner-cabinet members from the so-called executive - our elected ‘representatives’. The parliamentary talking shop is kept largely in the dark and routinely misled, while each party has an interest in distorting the truth to cover up its own inadequacies and downright corruption.

Take the Matrix Churchill affair. This company illegally exported weapons components to Iraq with the secret connivance of the government. While opposing arms exports to Saddam Hussein’s regime, the government felt it must ensure that the interests of British companies and British imperialism in general were placed above those of their rivals. So how could this contradiction be resolved? Simple. Say one thing and do another. The government changed its export guidelines without telling anyone, not even its own civil servants.

When Matrix Churchill was prosecuted, the government conveniently ‘forgot’ it had given the company the go-ahead. And when its directors tried to defend themselves by showing that their actions had government approval, ministers stepped in sharply to impose public immunity certificates. These are supposed to prevent the disclosure of ‘state secrets’, but are routinely used to suppress embarrassing information. If ‘innocent’ civilians like the directors of MC are jailed as a result, that is unfortunate.

No doubt if ordinary workers had been the victims of this duplicity, then no more would have been heard of it, but it is a different matter when it comes to members of the ruling class. Eventually all was revealed.

But that was not the end of the road for the two main cabinet culprits: attorney general Nicholas Lyell, who advised fellow ministers they had to sign the PICs; and treasury chief secretary William Waldegrave, who falsely and consistently informed MPs that arms sales to Iraq were still “tightly controlled”.

Sir Richard Scott was sent off for three years to investigate the scandal, but before his report was finally published, ministers succeeded in twisting his arm to make several amendments - including the statement that “Mr Waldegrave did not intend his letters [to MPs] to be misleading and did not so regard them.”

So, we are led to believe, the government is guilty ‘merely’ of unbelievable ignorance and incompetence and everything can get back to normal. Except that there are signs of yet more disquiet among the ranks of Tory MPs, not least Peter Thurnham, who is threatening to resign the whip.

The Conservatives may well be on their last legs, but the system they serve limps on.

Alan Fox