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Tom Watson’s apologetic addendum to his piece on Douglas Alexander and Libya

20/04/2011, 06:32:42 PM

In an unusual move, Tom Watson has added a caveat to his article adversely criticising Douglas Alexander’s refusal to back a recall of Parliament.

His apologetic addendum to this morning’s piece reads:

West Bromwich, 18.25

On re-reading this article, I find that, not for the first time, I’ve been too harsh on Douglas Alexander. He’s not making the calls, Hague is. He’s got the difficult task of reacting very quickly to a fast changing policy. So I regret the harsh tone of the piece. Sorry Douglas. To be fair, I should have said how he completely exposed coalition incompetence in the early days of the conflict over the evacuation. But I’m seriously worried about mission creep. And parliament hasn’t been consulted. Ministers should be held to account.

Whatever else you may say about Watson, he is never short of surprises.

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We should recall Parliament, but Douglas is sitting on his hands

20/04/2011, 11:30:32 AM

by Tom Watson

There are few issues more important for our Parliament than sending British troops to a hostile country to support an unknown opposition fighting a raggedy civil war against a brutal dictator.

Questioning him on Friday 18March after the government statement on Libya, David Winnick asked the prime minister:

“despite all that the prime minister has said about reservations – no ground troops and so forth – does he recognise that in the country at large there is bound to be great anxiety that we could be dragged, through escalation, into a third war in nine years? Therefore, will the prime minister make sure that there are daily – or at least very regular reports to the House of Commons, so we avoid a third war”?

David Cameron replied:

“…there should be regular statements updating the House. The point the honourable gentleman makes about no ground troops and no occupying force is vital. That is in the UN security council resolution; it is the reassurance that we can give to people that that is not part of our aims – it is not what the UN wants, it is not what the Arab league wants, it is not what Britain wants. That is clearly a limitation on our ability to act, but it is absolutely right, and I think people will be reassured by it”.

I read in today’s papers that we are sending troops to Libya, or as the government describes them “military liaison advisory teams”.

Yesterday, a number of Conservative MPs called for Parliament to be recalled. The government has not responded. While driving my children to a well known West Midlands theme park, I’m sure I heard Douglas Alexander on the radio agreeing that there was no need bring MPs back to discuss the matter.

I’m getting prematurely long in the tooth but I feel Douglas has made a mistake. He should have pressured a government minister to come to the House. It would have allowed MPs who worry about our Libya campaign to seek assurances that this does not represent mission creep. Personally, I don’t need to ask those questions. I know it is.

A recall would allow me, and others, to test the wisdom of David Cameron. David is very good at saying things. He’s a good wordsmith. He emotes. But he always leaves me with the sense that he’s basically just a bullshitter. It often feels like he is not fully formed in his views. You have to be up close to this set of ministers to get the full picture. Press statements are not enough.

It’s the psychology of our current crop of leaders that gives the game away. Unlike David Cameron, William Hague is a transparent politician. You always know what he is doing and thinking, even when his words suggest something different.

When William Hague said that sending “military liaison advisory teams” does not represent “boots on the ground”, I thought “oh my God, we’re sending in ground troops”.

Maybe Douglas knows a different William Hague and David Cameron. I would imagine he’ll be given special briefings on privy council terms. He probably accepts telephone calls, made by arrangement between their respective private offices for mutually beneficial times in their busy diaries.

Maybe that’s why he said on the radio that on this occasion he was satisfied by the government explanation of the need to send in special military liaison teams. Despite this, he shouldn’t be so quick to sit on his hands when backbenchers express legitimate concerns.

A recall of Parliament is a pain for all concerned. We should have one all the same. We’re sending in troops, for God’s sake. And look where that got us last time.

Tom Watson is Labour MP for West Bromwich East.

Addendum

West Bromwich, 18.25

On re-reading this article, I find that, not for the first time, I’ve been too harsh on Douglas Alexander. He’s not making the calls, Hague is. He’s got the difficult task of reacting very quickly to a fast changing policy. So I regret the harsh tone of the piece. Sorry Douglas. To be fair, I should have said how he completely exposed coalition incompetence in the early days of the conflict over the evacuation. But I’m seriously worried about mission creep. And parliament hasn’t been consulted. Ministers should be held to account.

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The week Uncut

16/04/2011, 10:30:53 AM

In case you missed them, these were the best read pieces on Uncut in the last seven days:

Atul Hatwal presents the shadow cabinet goal of the month competition

Dan Hodges thinks blue Labour needs a spinner

Tom Watson says Rebekah Brooks should resign

Michael Dugher reports back from Leicester South

Stella Creasy says private debt is this government’s public injustice

Nick Keehan reports on Cameron’s immigration speech

Sunder Katwala says Nick Cohen is wrong on religion

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If Rebekah Brooks had any respect for Rupert Murdoch, she would resign this week

12/04/2011, 07:00:13 AM

by Tom Watson

Part of me wants to scoff at the idiocy of the people who are paid staggering amounts of money to represent the interests of Rupert Murdoch. My God they’ve let him down. Then I think of the parents of the Soham kids and remember why the campaign cannot stop. And I think of my own children. My gentle, beautiful boy, frightened by the nasty man at the door during the Damian McBride affair. And I remember my sense of helplessness, when I couldn’t keep him, his mum and sister safe, even in our home. It took me to the brink – but that’s another story.

In the autumn of the media patriarch, Mr Murdoch’s love of his own children is the one touching piece of a drama, played out over years and decades, that has pulverised careers, relationships and lives.

I’ve read with a sense of sympathy how Mr Murdoch’s daughter has been financially endowed after her TV company was purchased by News Corp. James Murdoch, schooled at Harvard but not in life, shipped off to New York before the court at the palace of Wapping disintegrates. This is a father getting his house in order before time takes its inevitable toll on one of the most remarkable figures of the last half century. It’s touching. It’s sad. I admire him for it, but it doesn’t take away the scandal. (more…)

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The week Uncut

09/04/2011, 10:20:56 AM

In case you missed them, these were the best read pieces on Uncut in the last seven days:

Ed Balls says this week saw another black Wednesday for millions of Britons

Ex gen sec Peter Watt offers some advice for interested applicants

Dan Hodges asks why don’t we try and find out why we lost?

Tom Watson says letter from director of public prosecutions discredits Met testimony

Atul Hatwal offers up an Old Politics case for AV

Recovering intern, Sabrina Francis, thinks there must be a better way

…and Tom Harris takes aim at Ollie Letwin in this weeks half a minute Harris

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New letter from the director of public prosecutions discredits Met police testimony on phone hacking

05/04/2011, 10:30:15 AM

by Tom Watson

Parliament is peeling away at the phone hacking scandal and getting nearer to the facts. The comprehensive analysis submitted by the director of public prosecutions, published for the first time today, completely debunks the argument put forward by some officers of the metropolitan police that they could only prove that there were a tiny number of victims. For those who haven’t followed the byzantine twists and turns in the scandal, these are the key points to look for in the letter, the full text of which is hyperlinked at the bottom of this post.

What seems to emerge is that Starmer himself did not really focus on the question in 2009. I can understand this – after all he wasn’t involved in the previous investigation and would be reliant on others to draft responses. We have all been there, with multiple questions and very limited time. In any event, as he points out, his 2009 statement was based on a misunderstanding of the view of prosecuting counsel.

But the killer point for Starmer and against the Met is the indictment. It contained charges for which there was no evidence of prior interception. So this contemporaneous document demonstrates that the before/after question was considered irrelevant by counsel when drafting the indictment.

And not only by counsel. Had the police thought at the time that the only messages which counted were those which had not been listened to, they would certainly have queried the indictment as soon as they saw it. They would have pointed out that they had no evidence of prior interception in relation to a number of the charges.

Had they genuinely believed that prior interception was an essential element they had to prove, there is no way they would have neglected to warn prosecuting counsel. Equally, counsel would never have framed the indictment like that had they believed that only prior interception was an offence.

That indictment is clear contemporaneous evidence of the state of mind of the police and counsel at the time of the prosecution, namely that before/after did not matter.

The “only before” point has been dreamt up later by the Met on the basis of a bit of speculation by one of the lawyers during the investigation. It was never formal legal advice, indeed it was not advice at all, and to try to pretend it was, and that it “permeated” the entire investigation, is disingenuous.

John Yates has some big questions to answer today.

Here is the full letter from the DPP: Keir Starmer QC CPS 01 04 11.

Tom Watson is Labour MP for West Bromwich East.

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The week Uncut

26/03/2011, 10:30:52 AM

In case you missed them, these were the best read pieces on Uncut in the last seven days:

Tom Watson decided to back Cameron… and then changed his mind

Dan Hodges says Libya is not Cameron’s first war, it’s Blair’s last

Sally Bercow predicted the usual Tory fare on budget day

Atul Hatwal reveals how the fuel stabiliser will hike household energy bills

Peter Watt asks: where’s the social care in the health and social care bill?

Rob Marchant doesn’t want Ed to march for the alternative

Jonathan Todd thinks Miliband can own the future in a way Cameron can’t

…and in this weeks Half a minute Harris, Tom backed Theresa May on student visas

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Why I changed my mind and abstained on the Libya vote

21/03/2011, 11:59:55 PM

by Tom Watson

David Cameron’s assured performance at the dispatch box during the Libya statement on Friday worried me. He was confident, authoritative and re-assuring. It was like watching Tony Blair introducing the debate before we went to war in Iraq.

I was concerned that there wasn’t sufficient support amongst our key allies and, crucially, arab states to make military intervention credible.

I asked the PM:

“Now that the UN has reasserted its authority with this resolution, it is important that Gaddafi be in no doubt that there is an overwhelming military force to carry it out. In that light, how many countries does the prime minister wish to provide military assets, and how many of them come from the arab league”?

The PM replied:

“The hon. gentleman makes a good point. Obviously, we want the widest alliance possible. I do not think it would be right for me to name at the dispatch box those countries that are considering participation, but there is a wide number. Clearly, at the heart of this are the Americans, the French and the British, but other European countries are coming forward, and there are also some in the arab league, including a number I have spoken to, who have talked about active participation – about playing a part in this. One of the purposes of the meeting tomorrow in Paris will be to bring together the widest possible coalition of those who want to support it, and I believe, particularly as this has such strong UN backing, that it will be a very wide coalition indeed”.

I left the chamber with a lot of unanswered questions:

1.What are the objectives of this mission?

2.What are the limits of the UN resolution?

3.What is our exit strategy?

4.How much is it going to cost?

5.Have we the appropriate military capacity?

6.How strong is the international coalition? (more…)

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Why I’m voting with Cameron in support of bombing Libya

20/03/2011, 11:02:47 AM

by Tom Watson

Now that we know what we know about Iraq I vowed I’d never take a prime minister on trust again. Yet this is what I’m going to have to do tomorrow. My vote will be with Sarkozy and Cameron – and the united nations.

I have huge reservations. I have little choice. I have to believe that they’ll be true to their words: there won’t be a ground war. There won’t be an occupation. There has to be a plan, right? Parliament will be consulted regularly.

Cameron assured the House that the arab league states want this. I have to believe him.

And given that allied forces are already shooting out tanks, airfields and strategic targets, a vote against military intervention on Monday only undermines our country’s political strength on the world stage.

I have an ominous déjà vu feeling though. I asked the PM to say which countries were providing military assets to the coalition. He couldn’t tell me, or perhaps chose not to. Either way, it doesn’t instill confidence that this mission is entirely thought through. But I also understand the need for speed. When innocents are getting bombed there is little time for debate.

The UN resolution wasn’t supported by our key allies the Germans. It’s a cause for concern.

I’m extremely concerned that other dictators will use the focus onLibya to brutalise peaceful protests in their country. 45 protestors were shot dead in Yemen on Friday, for example.

We don’t know what Libya will look like if we can’t rid the country of Gaddafi. We don’t know what it will look like if we do.

There are hazardous times ahead. The future is uncertain. Cameron gets my vote tomorrow, but please God let this be over swiftly.

Tom Watson is Labour MP for West Bromwich East.

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