When MPs are off for their Recess (working hard in their constituencies, of course), the media take more interest in the work of our House. This may explain why a number of journalists were so fascinated by our discussion yesterday of the Profumo affair, whose fiftieth anniversary is this year.
Donald Macintyre hoped we were “finally about to hear the authentic inside story of the affair between the beautiful Chirstine Keeler and War Minister john Profumo, whose 1963 resignation sealed the fate of Harold Macmillan’s government”.
Conservative historian Lord Lexden tabled the original question, and pointed out that “a cloud of suspicion hangs over the Denning Report” into the scandal which led to Profumo’s resignation. The exchanges which followed were remarkable. When Lord (Andrew) Lloyd Webber declared a personal interest, there were audible gasps of anticipation. However, it turned out that he was particularly interested, not because he was involved in the affair itself, but because he is to stage a new musical about Stephen Ward, who introduced Keeler to the Minister. Given the average age of peers, it seemed likely that somebody in the chamber would have more personal connections with the biggest political scandal of that decade. If so, nobody confessed.
On the more serious issue – relating to the time that has to elapse before all the papers considered by Lord Denning are released – I asked innocently how these periods are decided, by whom, whether they are ever reviewed, and again by whom. My Liberal Democrat colleague, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, speaking on behalf of the Cabinet Office, gave us fascinating information, which boiled down to an admission that Lord Denning had given an undertaking to witnesses that nothing would be published until they had all died. Former Cabinet Secretary Lord Armstrong seemed to suggest that publication should be delayed not only by the longevity of the witnesses but by that of their descendants too! These exchanges can be read in Hansard here.
Donald Macintyre‘s sketch in The Independent and Simon Hoggart in the The Guardian add additional colour.
However, one curious question still hangs into the air, as it was posed by Lord Richard: was Lord Denning really authorised to give an undertaking that all these secrets would remain secret for as long as all the participants were still around?
How much our governance-advocates and key-workplace-masters are drawing and being given from the Common Purse,
and how they are spending those extravagrant amounts,
are both closely guarded and “private” secrets.
It is likewise a closely guarded secret and hush-hush embarrassment
(i) how job-skill-trained and qualified a sex-industry worker (prostitute) has to be; and
(ii) how much income-tax s/he has to pay.
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It should no longer be a guarded-secret that “we” are both extincting the bio- Lifesupports we depend upon, and destroying the non-renewable techno-resources of this Earth-One, upon which our descendants towards “Earth-Two” will have to make do.
Secrecy in our Parliament is a cancer on the democratic process. And this country is as full of the demons who are as skillful at it as any despotic tyrant could be elsewhere. It is cultural, runs through us like a rampant choking weed and has done for centuries.
Profumo was a randy jugger who liked women that looked as his wife did when she was young. A failure of many men who love the look rather than the individual with the face. On reading of this bounder and this particular affair, it implies he never had two words to say to the girl. He used a nice ministerial car to drive up the mews which dropped him off, went inside taking his trousers off stumbling as he did. Jumped on the women in the bed and as quick as you can say Jack Robinson, upped and left still pulling at his braces when he entered the waiting motor. His chauffeur didn’t have the time to get bored.
And he did this knowing he was safe. That no matter what, he would be looked after by his chums in the House. Because, a lot of them were at it, and still are. But now, since Clinton, they are bolshie with it. Nobody will turf the tuckers out as it is his private life after all and all is fair game today, isn’t it? There is no such thing as a moral code to defend. What is a moral code of practice. Anyone care to guess?
Secrecy is important when the years of censorship are as mad as they are spurious. Take the death of David Kelly for example. What a conspiracy that must be if it can be held so long before it outs. And not even an inquest can be held. All to cover the sins of those still strutting the world stage with cringe making brazeness grinning in our faces.
A clean up of this little act would be a start toward accountability. But Public schoolboys never like to face the music when it comes to getting caught. There is always a fiddle on the side line. You do me and I’ll do you old boy. Mums the word, eh?
Poor Christine sold herself too cheaply. She wasn’t very smart. She should have sold the story to the highest bidder and let the cards fall where they will. Been in on the screen rights as well, still pulling in royalties to this day. She would have made more than the jingo writers we have. Living in cool luxury like the man who used her slavishly.
Secret courts and the covering of actions for demonic individuals who play in the top drawer of our system does none of us any good. In fact it causes more harm to our country than is realised. It festers like the Kelly incident, which will come to a head like a carbuncle before too much longer.
Take the Snowden affair for example. He decides to blow the whistle on the ‘private’ company he worked for as he felt the world should know what criminal acts they were secretly up to. Instead of arresting those who perpetrate the crime on us all, the White House accuses him of treason against the State. They want to cover up what is going on in companies who are committing criminal acts against us. So this man is treated as a fugitive for exposing what those at the top are doing. Remember, this was not the government he was working for, it was a ‘private’ company. Obviously the people at the top were on some kind of payola for their collusion in the act of infiltrating friendly governments and innocent people. Secrecy being the big cancer in this little carry on. Secrecy at the top.
Then we find the private companies here are at the same game, with the police knowing all about it, but keeping quiet. Now who told them to do that? Could it be those at the top?
If you go along with it, it will soon be you they pick off, one by one.
Why haven’t you published what I brought forward, about the need to re-define the terminology of “Secrecy”,
and of its “on-the-ground-applications”,
and of its “publicity-levels and timeframes” ?
A Big Still-Open-Sore-Case, for Instance:-
It was “a secret”, and “private”,
not only to the vast majority of People but to the perpetrators and recipients in particular*
that Bankers and Other Establishmentarians are drawing from, and being given by the Controllers of, the Common Purse
in excess of two (2)human-livings** each, in most cases more than 100 human-livings each,
and in at least one Biggest Bank’s case more than 400 human-livings each
and sometimes in-cahoots with additionally being given 6 figure handouts for sitting on another bank’s board or in some other “Private Sector Profitable” seat.
* for instance, a certain Big British Bank’s chief was reported to have been “livid” when a Newspaper dared to publish, and people began to ‘talk’, about the many £Millions s/he was walking away with,
and in effect also threw into further question whether such failed huge “pay-graders” were in fact “earning”, questionably even only one-human-living.
** One sufficient human-living, excluding business-hours-costs, might be taken as £200 per week.
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And I also submitted that this “secrecy” issue needed to accurately-define the terms “to earn” and “earnings”.
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Maude say “Secrecy … is a cancer …”
to which must be added
“and so is Profiteering-Privacy,
and Suppression of honest-democratic-participation-and-scrutiny”.