POLITICS
Mr Heseltine prepares to show
that honesty is the best policy
SIMON HEFFER
ne of the highlights of the long-run- ning show The Scott Inquiry, in which a fearless interrogator, assisted by a winsome brunette, seeks to overcome political obstruction and discover the truth about arms supplies to Iraq, will take place next Monday. After quizzing superstars like Mr Clarke, and retired minor celebrities like Mr Tristan Garel-Jones, Lord Justice Scott has the chance to pit himself against Mr President Heseltine. The President is no ordinary politician. Having in the past been written off politically — not least, I am ashamed to confess, in this column — he has risen from the grave to hold high office. Struck down last summer by a hand greater even than Sir Charles Powell's or Sir Bernard Ingham's, he has now recovered from a heart attack. Mr Heseltine will come out fighting against Lord Scott; not least because, in his 61st year, he has his future to consider.
But the President is extraordinary in more than his energy. He is remarkable in his profession for always being nasty to oth- ers to their faces rather than behind their backs (I'd rather vote for someone who stabbed her in the front,' said Mr Edward Leigh, famously, justifying his decision to vote for Mr Heseltine in the second leader- ship ballot in 1990). His probity, tempered by first-hand knowledge of the workings of the Government's law officers, meant he was no pushover when asked to sign the immunity documents at the heart of the arms-to-Iraq inquiry. Sir Nicholas Lyell, the increasingly posthumous-looking Attorney- General, told the President he had no choice but to sign. The President, unlike other colleagues, begged to differ. 'When- ever Michael gets told to do something by the law officers, his instinct is to get his own lawyers in to check he's not being carved up,' a friend of his said. We shall perhaps know on Monday whether Mr Heseltine took a second opinion before agreeing, reluctantly, to muddy the waters of justice.
However, if one were to put money on who will come up smelling of roses when the inquiry reports in August (or later), the President would be the safest bet. There are those who acted wrongly; those who acted foolishly; and those who were neither wrong nor foolish, but are perceived as being so politically weak that they will make appropriate scapegoats. Mr Hesel- tine will come into none of these cate- gories. Unless there are the most surprising revelations, he should emerge with his rep- utation magnificently enhanced.
Sir Nicholas Lyell, by contrast, is said by some to have acted wrongly. 'I remember,' a Cabinet minister told me, 'being asked to sign one of these things by Paddy Mayhew when he was Attorney. I was told by Paddy to read it carefully, and to be aware that I might have to get up in court and defend what I was doing, so I had better under- stand the implications.' Mr Clarke, in his evidence, said Sir Nicholas gave him no choice but to sign; but then the law is not an exact science.
Mr Clarke, now the Chancellor, appears to have been foolish. As a lawyer himself he might have been expected to ask more questions about the documents before he signed them, rather than blithely do what his learned friend told him. With the esprit for which he is famed, Mr Clarke made his own je ne regrette rien defence before Scott last Monday. However, this finest of politi- cians has made one political mistake. So sure was he of his own rectitude that he rashly made a promise, on television, three weeks ago, to resign if found guilty of any wrongdoing. That was silly; though not quite so silly as his failure to appreciate how determined Lord Scott is to cause trouble. 'He's a bottle-thrower,' one minis- ter on the periphery of the affair told me. 'He wants to kick our arse. And he will.' The betting on Mr Clarke being found cul- pable of something, even if only of negli- gence in believing everything Sir Nicholas Lyell told him, must be at least evens.
Thoughts of Sir Nicholas bring us on to scapegoats. He is the most obvious, and most deserving, candidate for this honour. Some of his colleagues suggest he might take an early bath in a summer reshuffle, an event thought likely to happen before Scott reports but after the writing on the wall has been seen by Mr Major. 'I don't think John has quite woken up to how bad all this is going to be for the Government,' says a close colleague of the Prime Minis- ter's. 'Of course, there's a lot going to go wrong before then, but he'll have to give it some thought sooner or later.' Ministers and others criticised in the inquiry will have critical comments referred to them before publication, so nothing is going to come as a surprise. Mr Waldegrave, now the Chan- cellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (and, paradoxically, Minister for Open Govern- ment), has been whispered about by Mr
Major's friends as ripe for scapegoating fol- lowing action he took as a Foreign Office minister. However, Mr Waldegrave has done nothing stupid or dishonourable, and to make an example of him would be grotesque. The animus against him has nothing to do with arms-to-Iraq, but much to do with some entirely (as it turned out) accurate observations he made about Mr Major's fitness for the highest office during the 1990 leadership election.
There is, so far, no concerted govern- ment plan to discredit Lord Scott and his inquiry. However, the Tories are known to be deeply grateful to newspapers who have published pictures of his lordship arriving at work on his bike, or strolling around with his son, a radical convert to Islam who looks as though he is about to come on to bowl leg-spin for Karachi Whites. Lord Howe had a controlled explosion against Lord Scott when he gave evidence; but this was not a government plot to destabilise the inquiry, rather Lord Howe responding to the anger of his former officials, to whom he remains close and loyal. There is anger that the Government did not, and still does not, realise the damaging poten- tial of the inquiry. 'It's all very well to say that Norman Brook would never have been humiliated in the way Robin Butler was,' a senior minister said, comparing a distin- guished ex-Cabinet Secretary with the pre- sent one. 'But then Norman Brook would never have allowed something so damaging to proper government and to British inter- ests to be set up in the first place.'
Meanwhile, Mr Heseltine can survey the future with confidence. After local and Euro-election defeats, more rows about taxation, at least one impending by-election disaster and any number of other horrors as yet unseen, a damning report by Scott of the duplicity and incompetence of the Gov- ernment could be the last straw for Mr Major. Honest Michael Heseltine might then not only have another crack at the leadership; he might have the chance to do so just as the perceived heir-apparent, Mr Clarke, has been floored. Mr Heseltine might even become Prime Minister. It would have been a long and tortuous path to the top, but there would at least be merit in getting there, at last, as a result of trying to do the decent thing.
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