These days I am dividing my
time between trying to influence the kind of future my children and grandchildren
will experience as British citizens and my ongoing work of more than decade
chronicling my experience in written form together with visual, audio material
and documentation, including publishing some of the created written material,
and where part of the ongoing work is to measure experience against present
experience. For this reason, I halted the daily Blog writing unless an event
occurs where I feel compelled to do so
Unexpectedly, Monday 30th of
October 2017 became a potentially significant day in my quest to help create a
better future as well as unravel what happened in the past.
Given the publicity about sexual
harassment involving Members and staff of the House of Commons, the weekend statement
of zero tolerance by the Leader of the Opposition and a published letter from
the Prime Minister, I assumed there would an urgent statement in the House of
Commons in the afternoon and on checking saw that it would be made after the
planned questioning of a Ministerial Department at around 3.30.
What I had not anticipated is that with the authority of
the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, the Speaker not only made a Zero
tolerance statement but had already initiated action to ensure that there was
one agreed and effective system covering everyone who visited or worked at the
Palace of Westminster, and covered all the Members of the House of Commons and
the noble Barons(Baronesses) in the House of Lords who operate in effect as one
person independent businesses in terms of the staff they employ,
albeit paid for the greater part by the state and by those who help fund politicians and pay for staff as
well as political campaigning.
The Speaker had already met that
morning with the Leader of the Commons and Harriet Harman who has served for
four decades as a Member of Parliament, and mentioned that he was having
further meetings later, and meeting the authorities that govern the House of
Lords on Tuesday morning. The intention is to have the system in place within
days when it can be expected it will be presented to both House as a fait
accompli although it is presumed there will have to be a vote and appropriate
funding earmarked as the intention is to provide for training, monitoring and
an independent complaint system in which those making allegations will remain
anonymous unless there is reference of an allegation to the police when the normal
due process will apply.
It was also evident that
because that a similar list was being compiled in relation to Labour Party
politicians in Parliament and John Mann the Member for Bassetlaw and several
Labour Members hoped the new approach would be extended by the political
parties to their constituency offices and throughout local government
generally. The ambition is to move from woefully lagging good practice in other
settings to becoming leaders in changing the culture where sexually harassment,
bullying, racism, homophobic and sexist behaviour is no longer tolerated and to
which I was add drunkenness.
Most people will agree that
this development is overdue although it should not be used as a means for scalp
hunting political or personal enemies and there was a hint of this when one
Tory member used the occasion to hit out against John McDonald and later a news
broadcast the issue of the Member of Parliament for Sheffield was raised and
separately the influence of Momentum on the selection of Parliamentary candidates.
There is risk that the issue will be used by those who want to end the power of
the Brexiteers and hold a second referendum and by those who want a hard
Brexit, in order for the Tories to try and stay in power or Labour to gain
power by not rocking the boat and I
suspect everyone will be in accord that everything should be done to prevent
the kind of media storm around the expenses scandal which brought all
politicians into greater disrepute than ever previously and where some believe
was one factor in the Leave referendum vote and the upsurge in physical attacks
and threats to politicians.
My sense that the compilation
and circulation of the unredacted spreadsheet list of 36 Conservative Members
of the House of Commons marks a significant moment in achieving a
lasting cultural and regime change
appeared reinforced when the Prime Minister who sat throughout the Urgent
Question statement and questioning, occasionally nodding in assent, appeared to
have been stunned and shattered by the
development and the potential impact on
being able to hold the government
together over Brexit, lose her
position and the inevitable
consequential General Election would bring a socialist orientated Labour party
into power under Jeremy Corbyn. The
possibility that Mr Corbyn could be asked to try and form an administration
without a General Election also remains a possibility if Mrs May is defeated on
a vote of confidence and must admit she can no longer govern.
Later in the day arising from
news programmes, including BBC 2 Newsnight it became possible how the situation
has arisen. The list has been compiled by Tory Party staff employed at
Westminster. A self-described young journalist (25) (I believe from the
Telegraph which was the lead paper in the Expenses scandal) said on Newsnight
that she had been working with Parliamentary staff and investigating the
problem at Westminster for some time. It would be surprising if the all Party
Parliamentary group on sexual equality has not been actively involved and
several participants spoke during the urgent question including its chairman co
chairman Bernard Jenkin who also appeared on Newsnight with Diane Abbot the
other who was also present. Another group with significant interest is that on
Women in Parliament.
I have previous referred to the little known
among the wider public existence of these all-party interest groups with
members from both Houses of Parliament and where the secretarial function is
often provided by outside agencies. There are over 100 groups concerned with
individual countries such as Spain, Gibraltar and the British Overseas
Territories which also includes Gibraltar which are of special interest to me
but surprisingly not Malta and well over 300 concerned with subject group
interests where a dozen of concern in relation to my work, although
surprisingly that on child abuse is no longer on the register.
The issue of registration, and
therefore information publication is important, and my present understanding is
that unregistered groups and gatherings for specific purposes do also occurs in
addition to the raft of Select Committees, Legislative committee of both
Houses. Although it is significant is that the government has so far refused to
re-establish the Joint Committee on the security services since the recent
General Election although the all-party Interest Group continues to function.
It is likely that the Government does not want Labour to have control of this
committee, does not want individual Labour Members to be nominated or does not
want some issues about current security activities to be raised and where I am
engaged in a substantive work related to my own experience which refers to
disclosures in the authorised History of MI5 which ended with the departure of
Mrs Thatcher from office and the emergence of digital spying.
In between Chanel Four News
and BBC News at 10 and BBC 2 Newsday I had looked forward all day to what
appears to be the last episode in the series of Inspector George Gently based
on the books originally set in Norfolk but in the TV series was moved to
Northumbria and Durham. The final episode of the two to be shown in the eighth
series was postponed because it concerned potential rise to power of a left
wing anti-United States Member of Parliament for the Labour party and potentially
into Premiership in 60’s where the series is set The main ingredients of the final programme
is the attempt supposed in hr National Interest to attempt to frame the Member
of Parliament fir a murder he did not committee but where had been blackmailed to pay a
corrupt senior police officer go remove from the file a witness statement and autopsy report that the victim had been murdered. When
Gently proves the murder was committed by someone else who confesses, he and the
head of a Met based corruption it is put under great pressure to continue to pursue
the MP. It transpires the reason behind the move is because the MP has
established a consortium with European and private money to establish a civil
airport, a container port and a new
road structure which in fact could be said to resemble Tees Port and Tees
airport with the dual carriage A19 and the Links to the AIM. The National interest is that the Americans
wanted the site for one of their basis. Meanwhile his colleagues taking over when
Gently retires later in the month investigate what is shown to be the murder of
non-union labour who turns out to be an undercover journalist concerned about government
involvement with the company using the non-labour and where, one must
surprisingly the journalist had found evidence of the companies promised
involvement in the USA airbase proposition. The third element is the discovery
that hit and rum driver who killed his wife
was special forces now used by
the secret services to work on arm’s length or off the books action. Gently’s
non cooperation led to him being executed and his second in command soon to
take over as Chief Inspector always on the right of the Tory Party and establishment
supporter sets about finding the evidence on the Gently’s killer despite having
been told before his death that he should walk away.
It is sometimes said that
real life can sometimes be stranger than fiction and there 