8 SEPTEMBER 2001, Page 28

Why the Guardian and the Observer are not singing from the same hymn sheet over Northern Ireland

STEPHEN GLOVER

How sad it is to discover that one's gentle advice has gone unheeded. Over a year ago I pointed out that the Guardian's line on Northern Ireland was sometimes barely distinguishable from that of Sinn Fein. Even though Alan Rusbridger, the paper's editor, did not take kindly to all my suggestions, I suppose I hoped that when the din had died down he might, in the small hours of the night, examine his conscience and resolve to do better. For Mr Rusbridger, as is well known, is essentially a moderate and judicious man whom one would not normally associate with extreme positions.

Alas, not an enormous amount of soulsearching seems to have gone on. While many of us were on holiday, things have been taking a turn for the worse in Northern Ireland. As the Guardian saw it, this was largely the fault of the Unionists. The paper's leader column and its Northern Irish expert, Jonathan Freedland, welcomed the IRA's offer to decommission its arms as entirely genuine. When this was summarily withdrawn, it was not the IRA which incurred the displeasure of the Guardian's leader writer and Mr Freedland (actually they are often one and the same person) but the intransigent Unionists. Meanwhile the paper suggested that the Royal Ulster Constabulary may have been responsible for the Omagh bombing because it had ignored a warning.

It is all a bit depressing. And yet I will try to look on the bright side. Mr Rusbridger, apart from being editor of the Guardian, is also editor-in-chief of its sister paper, the Observer. The interesting thing is that while the daily paper is a bit loopy on Northern Ireland, its Sunday sibling is perfectly sane. Though the Observer is entirely committed to the peace process, it does not view the activities of Sinn Fein through rosecoloured glasses. I do not claim this has much to do with Mr Rusbridger, who probably plays little or no role in formulating the editorial policy of the Observer, but it is nice to know that somewhere in his sprawling empire good sense prevails on the subject of Northern Ireland.

In the past few weeks the two papers have seen things very differently. The Guardian thought the IRA's offer to decommission was *of enormous significance' and indisputably sincere. The Observer spoke more cautiously of the 'muted Unionist response to the IRA's his tonic shuffle forward on arms', concluding 'that neither side is genuinely ready to build the shared society of which the Good Friday Agreement provided a tantalising glimpse'. When three IRA men were arrested in Colombia where they were training terrorists, the Guardian opined that 'the hullabaloo over the arrest of three suspected IRA men in Colombia is. . . not a major issue', and chided Unionists for taking it so seriously. But the Observer believed it was a major issue, running a long piece by its stringer in Bogota and Henry McDonald, its Northern Ireland correspondent, which judged that 'the arrest of the three men has been more than just a publicity disaster for Sinn Fein. and a major embarrassment to its sponsors in the Irish government and their Irish-American allies'.

Probably the best recent example of the Guardian's prejudices was a story published on its front page on 17 August, written by the crime correspondent, Nick Hopkins. The sensational headline was: 'Revealed: the evidence that forced a new Omagh inquiry: Ombudsman to look at claims RUC was told bomb was imminent.' According to the paper, an IRA informer using the pseudonym of Kevin Fulton had plausibly alleged that he had told the RUC about the June 1998 bombing of Omagh 48 hours before it happened. In short, it was the RUC's fault. While it was perfectly true that the ombudsman is looking into the allegation, and so that part of the story was hard news, the paper was much too eager to accept Mr Fulton at face value. The man has been hawking his story around for months, offering it first to the Mail on Sunday, which turned it down, and subsequently to the Sunday People, which published it. Just conceivably there may be something in what he says, but the Guardian piece, and a leader the next day, practically took it as gospel. The Observer, however, ignored it altogether.

How does one explain the Guardian's anti-Unionism and its perennial sympathy for Sinn Fein? (There is, I should say, no evidence of such leanings in Rosie Cowan's dispatches from Belfast.) When I last wrote about all this, I mentioned the influence of Ronan Bennett, a well-known Republican whose partner is the paper's deputy editor. Georgina Henry. But it is possible to make too much of Mr Bennett's role — he is, after all, a busy scriptwriter, one of whose eagerly awaited projects is a collaboration with Mr Rusbridger himself. As for Ms Henry, though no one doubts her Republican sympathies, she is on maternity leave. My feeling is that the key influence is Jonathan Freedland, who has excellent Republican sources and sometimes writes news stories as well as leaders and signed columns. Mr Rusbridger, natural moderate though he may be, seems to have bought the Republican line. And yet he does not press it on the Observer, where one stabilising force is the already mentioned Henry McDonald. Though far from being a Protestant patsy (he is under a Loyalist death threat), Mr McDonald abominates the IRA.

Perhaps, as I say, we should draw comfort from the Observer's line, But I know there are senior journalists at the Guardian who believe their paper has gone too far in supporting Sinn Fein, and I still hope that Mr Rusbridger can be brought to see the error of his ways.

Afew weeks ago I remarked that Kenneth Clarke had got off lightly after selling cigarettes to the Third World. fain Duncan Smith, by contrast, is harried at every turn, with the Mail on Sunday a couple of weeks ago seemingly suggesting he used to have vicarious links with Italian fascists. So it should come as no surprise that little fuss has been made about one of Mr Clarke's backers, an Asian businessman called Nathu Puri.

During the 1997 Tory leadership election contest Mr Puri contributed £32,000 towards Mr Clarke's campaigning expenses of £40,000. It is suspected that he is again a major donor, though as I write the Clarke camp has still not produced any figures. The problem is that Mr Puri, who has also given money to New Labour, is a somewhat controversial figure, having been barred by a judge from acting as a trustee in any occupational pension fund carrying out investment business.

This is well known in Fleet Street, and yet apart from a column by Andrew Alexander in the Daily Mail, and fleeting references in the Times and Sunday Times, nothing has appeared. The story did not even find favour with the Daily Telegraph whose political — as opposed to leaderwriting — team inclines to Mr Clarke. Was ever a politician so protected?