POLITICS

By Simon Jenkins, guardian.co.uk, 1 May 2012

 

Ed: Swap Cameron for Key, Thatcher for Muldoon and a few other minor politicians' names and this article is entirely pertinent to New Zealand.

 

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A politician in the wrong is like a cornered stoat. The survival instinct brings on a surge of wild, furious aggression. The prime minister knew this week that a Commons select committee would revive the News of the World phone-hacking affair just as his culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, had a prima facie case to answer over his handling of the News Corp bid for BSkyB. Every warning light should have flashed red alert.

 

There was a golden let-out, a perfect device for neutralising such delicacies: a reference to the cabinet's moral ombudsman, Sir Alex Allen.

There was no need for a trial or witnesses or evidence in public. Allen was the old guard, a wink and a nudge in the club, a calming of nerves and a silencing of critics. Since time immemorial such methods have swept dirt

under carpets or, if need be, placed revolvers in loos. Allen could have exonerated (or dispatched) Hunt, and David Cameron could have happily electioneered in Milton Keynes.

 

 

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