AND ANOTHER THING
The King, the Cardinal, the bogeyman and the paper tigers
PAUL JOHNSON
The exploits of Lord Chancellor Irvine, and the relationship between him and his young master, Tony Blair, are the most Intriguing aspect of the Labour govern- ment, the stuff of which novelists and play- wrights — and indeed political commenta- tors — dream. Here's richness, here's mischief! His Lordship likes a wee dram, and when thus emboldened, he speaks his thoughts. His post-prandial comparison of himself with Cardinal Wolsey was a classic example of in vino veritas. Is not the paral- lel apt? Was not the experienced Wolsey a sure mentor for the tyro steps of the young, untried monarch? Is not the Prime Minis- ter daily on the phone to his former cham- ber-master, seeking counsel? And does he not defer to his weighty interventions in Cabinet? The Lord Chancellor boasts of his presence on many Cabinet committees: there are few aspects of government, he hints, to which he is not privy. So it was with Wolsey, provoking the angry words Shakespeare puts into Buckingham's mouth: 'No man's pie is free from his ambi- tious finger.'
The revelations of at what cost Chancel- lor Irvine is adorning his palace in West- minster and furnishing it with splendid Old Masters from public collections is also something of which Shakespeare would have made much — in fact did make much of in Henry VIII, Act III, scene 2. There, the King describes how Wolsey inadver- tently included in a packet of papers he sent for Henry to sign a detailed inventory of his own possessions, including, as the King enviously noted, 'The several parcels of his plate, his treasure, / Rich stuffs, and ornaments of household; which / I find at such proud rate, that it out-speaks / Posses- sion of a subject.' It matters not that His Lordship has little to do with the costly re- Puginising of his lodgings, or that the Old Masters were simply collecting dust in murky Scottish cellars. At the summit of society, as royals can tell you, truth and fan- tasy mingle together like corn and weeds. To the goggling onlooker, it is as though the Lord Chancellor, having himself donned the cardinal's hat in a moment of folly, is now swelling his head to fill it.
For once I do not entirely blame the press for hunting this plump red fox, for Irvine asked for it when he proposed to muzzle the hounds. If he had advocated a privacy law, making press intrusion a tort and grounds for a civil action, like libel, all decent sensible persons would have agreed with him, and I would have hailed him as a Just Man, sent to liberate us from the thral- dom of the paper barons. But he did not do this. Instead he queered the pitch by proposing a clumsy and invidious, and therefore unworkable, system of pre-cen- sorship, conducted by Establishment busy- bodies instead of the ordinary courts of law. This was plainly intended to protect the rich and powerful rather than ordinary people, who are the most pitiable victims of press cruelty. His intervention was counter- productive. By leading Downing Street to disavow what he said, he has set back the anti-intrusion cause. That makes me sus- pect that Irvine may not be the man of judgment we are told he is but simply an exalted booby. Perhaps he will turn out to be like that other Scotch chancellor, Henry Brougham, whom he certainly resembles in some ways. Brougham made effective use of his formidable powers until the moment he triumphantly seated himself on the woolsack. Thereafter he got everything wrong and soon turned himself into an object of ridicule who in due course could be dismissed without fuss.
Irvine reminds me of another of his pre- decessors, F.E. Smith, who ruled the law as Earl of Birkenhead. Smith was, as Lord Beaverbrook said, `the cleverest man in the kingdom'. He was admired by Churchill for exactly the same reason that Blair admires Irvine: he could sum up in Cabinet a much- argued case in a few lucid sentences, and cut through a ragged, aimless discussion by identifying the real issues. Such men are invaluable and Blair wants His Lordship around for exactly this reason. But Smith, like Irvine, was fond of a dram, and sitting on the woolsack, listening to interminable blather, was the worst possible occupation for such a man, tempting him to nip out periodically to stop himself going crazy. The result was catastrophic. Before Irvine was even appointed, I drew this precedent to Blair's attention and suggested that, since Irvine had developed the practice of going into training for important cases, he should extend it, and forswear dramming `for the duration'. Blair was uneasy about demanding such a promise, and evidently did not exact it; or if he did, it has not been kept. And the media, who have long been compiling dossiers on Irvine, are eagerly waiting for the great man to fall into their hands.
There are two morals to be drawn from this modern fable of the Cardinal and the King. First, it is high time Blair made every- one, even the most exalted, feel the power of his royal biceps. Mrs Thatcher, who was almost as inexperienced as he was when she became PM, had to go through the same nervous stage of irresolution before she started to cut embarrassing colleagues down to size, or kick them out. But she made herself do it, and soon it became easy (eventually too easy). Blair must cross the same Rubicon and teach even his most senior men — former mentors included who is boss. As one of his most powerful advisers said to me last week, 'Blair must become more presidential, not less.' I agree. Gordon Brown has been disloyal, Robin Cook and Derry Irvine have been indiscreet, and all three have done the gov- ernment damage. They must be disciplined, and seen to be disciplined, not necessarily by being sacked but by those delicate adjustments which a Cabinet reshuffle makes possible. Blair's first is now due, per- haps overdue.
The second lesson is also a test of Blair's mettle. He does not lack courage. He has it in abundance — he is in the Thatcher league there. But he is still a little diffident in using it. Just as he must teach all his col- leagues that none is indispensable, so he must make it clear that all the institutions in this country are subject to the public interest, of which he is the elected guardian. Thatcher did this to the unions. Blair must do it to the media. The unions destroyed three elected governments in the 1970s. Now they are under law. The media did not exactly destroy the Major govern- ment — it destroyed itself. But the media turned a defeat into an overwhelming rout which, we can now see, operates against the public. And, if unrestrained, it will destroy the Blair government. What it is doing to Irvine, it can and will do to Blair. Blair is going to have to take on the media sooner or later — that's for sure — and the sooner the better. A public humiliation for Rupert Murdoch and the tabling of a tough privacy bill would be steps in the right direction. The press is a paper tiger. Murdoch is noth- ing but a bogeyman. Blair has nothing to fear but fear itself.
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