HITTING BELOW THE WHITEHALL BELT
The press: Paul Johnson
deplores ill-informed attacks on a great public servant
ONE OF the most unpleasant aspects of the media campaign against Margaret Thatcher was the innaccurate attempt to portray Charles Powell, her Private Secret- ary with responsibility for foreign affairs, as a Thatcherite partisan, habitually over- stepping his civil service responsibilities. Inexplicably, the campaign goes on even though Mrs Thatcher herself has left No 10 and Sir Charles (as he now is), having stayed on at John Major's request while the Gulf war lasted, leaves there this month. The allegations against him are without any foundation whatever. Powell is undoubtedly of outstanding ability. A very senior civil servant remarked recently, 'He has one of the best minds I have ever come across.' His energy and devotion to work is also exceptional, and this is one reason why he got on so well with Mrs Thatcher, who has similar characteristics. But he served her, as he has been serving Major, like any other first-class civil ser- vant: that is, carrying out her instructions, to the best of his ability, in all that is lawful and according to the established constitu- tional rules. I do not believe that the most exacting inquiry would reveal the smallest departure from precedent on his part. Even by civil service standards his discre- tion is unusual, and trusted friends rarely hear him express any kind of political opinion, let alone a partisan one. I don't recall any occasion when I have known him enter into a political argument. All this is well known among senior people in Whitehall, and the accusations against him, invariably accompanied by obvious inaccuracies, do nothing to dimin- ish the feelings of contempt for journalists they already tend to hold. A characteristic example was published by the Independent on 30 March 1990, under the byline of Anthony Bevins, and based upon a motion tabled by Tam Dalyell, which itself was a tissue of falsehoods. Under the headline 'Thatcher Adviser "Tried to Influence Newspaper" ', the gist of the story was that Powell had been 'accused of undermining the non-party role of civil servants' by attending 'a recent club lunch in Mayfair designed to persuade Conrad Black, owner of the Daily Telegraph, to show greater support for Mrs Thatcher'. However, 'Mr Black had not been won over by the lunch at the Curzon Aspinall Club'. The entire story was nonsense. As everyone who knows him is aware, Black has always been a passionate supporter and admirer of Mrs Thatcher, never in need of being 'won over'. A meal did indeed take place — Dalyell and Bevins got that right anyway. However, it was not a club lunch but a dinner, at which wives were present. It took place not at 'the Curzon Aspinall Club', but at Aspinall's private house. It had no specific purpose other than socialis- ing. No discussion whatever took place about the political role of the Daily Tele- graph, other than Alan Clark MP asking, in what was described to me as 'a neutral fashion', whether Max Hastings, its editor, 'had a high opinion of Heseltine'. Accord- ing to Black, 'Charles Powell made no comment whatever on any political subject throughout the evening.'
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this business is that Bevins was informed that the Dalyell Commons version was untrue, and that any news-story repeating and enlarging upon it would be false. Mrs Miller, Black's private secretary, twice 'I'd like four hundred and twenty-eight "You're fired" cards.' spoke to Bevins outlining the inaccuracy of what Dalyell asserted, and Black himself wrote to Bevins to the same effect. As Black put it to me, 'His performance in this matter was unethical and quite hypocritical and you are welcome to quote me if you wish.' I repeat that the business is disturb- ing because the Independent has from its inception attempted to set itself up as an exemplar of journalistic probity, and its editor, Andreas Whittam Smith, has been a leading busybody in laying down rules of conduct.
The hostility to Powell, the most inoffen- sive of men, makes no sense. Of course the position he held aroused jealousy in the Foreign Office, but only among the second-rate. With hardly an exception, top officials and high-flyers there hold him in high regard, not least for his invariable straight dealing with them. Critics of Thatcher obviously feel that to hit at him is a way of hurting her, a pretty ignoble motive, you may think. There was a nasty attack on Powell in last Wednesday's Even- ing Standard. It was written by Edward Pearce, a former Telegraph parliamentary sketch-writer, known as 'the man who brought the metaphor into disrepute'. I feel rather sorry for Pearce, who is able in his way, and energetic, but who can't seem to find his right journalistic niche; he also appears socially ill at ease, and chippy in consequence. Thus he objects to the fact that Powell's name is `poshly pronounced to rhyme with foal not bowel', and that he performed the 'courtly service' of holding an umbrella over Mrs Thatcher's head on occasion. Well: one may feel sorry for Pearce, but that does not justify his mali- cious article attacking Powell as, in effect, someone without principle. The title was 'A Man Unashamed of Having Two Faces'. Pearce may not have been re- sponsible for this heading, but it was based on his belief, the nub of the article, that Powell, who drafted Mrs Thatcher's Bruges speech, 'abhorring European in- tegration', was also the man 'who drafted John Major's seminal Heart of Europe speech in Bonn'. Pearce obviously does not understand the function of civil servants in our country: in the unlikely event of a Labour government, the Cabinet Secret- ary, Sir Robin Butler, for instance, will ensure that instructions given by Neil Kinnock's Cabinet are executed just as he does so at present for John Major's; that does not make him two-faced. In any case, as it happened — and as Pearce might have troubled himself to discover; his excuse was 'We were in a terrific rush' — the Bonn speech was not drafted by Powell but by Sarah Hogg and Chris Patten. Collapse of stout argument — or rather what was, even to begin with, a feeble one. Reflect- ing on the anti-Powell vendetta, I have come to the sombre conclusion that there are some people in the media who simply do not recognise a decent, honourable servant of the public when they see one.
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