I've had another day on the road listening to radio phone-ins. I was down to Old Trafford for a lunch, guest speaker the amazing Mark Halsey. Both Mark Halsey and his wife have recently fought cancer and his talk/interview after lunch was truly inspirational, top man! I was then supposed to be watching Lancashire v Somerset. Of course it rained all day, so I came home not having seen a ball bowled after lunch.
But what struck me today on the radio was the number of people calling for David Cameron to resign for employing Andy Coulson, former News of the World editor. Cameron employed him after Coulson had been cleared by the police and a House of Commons committee of involvement in the hacking scandal currently ravaging the British establishment. I have no time for Cameron, who I think is a phoney, but it seems to me that there are two elements to this question.
If you ran a business would you refuse to employ somebody if they had been investigated and cleared by not only the police, but a House of Commons committee? Have we forgotten innocent until proven guilty to such an extent that anybody accused by another, and investigated but found innocent, should be rendered unemployable? Do people then report a rival for a job or promotion to the police, so that even if innocent the employer refuses to employ or promote them as a result of the investigation?
On a second level was it not an error of judgement by Cameron to employ somebody with such a huge amount of baggage as Coulson? There are thousands of media advisers out there, probably just as effective if not more so than Coulson, so why did Cameron appoint Coulson knowing it could blow up in his face. If he didn't realise it could blow up in his face he must be stupid, as must his advisers be. If I was a Tory member I would be asking serious questions about Cameron.
But I find it odd that the public sit back, by and large, and don't bat an eyelid when successive Prime Ministers bomb the crap out of assorted foreign countries. But they go into paroxisms of righteous indignation when a Prime Minister employs a dodgy, but until now innocent man, and call for him (the PM) to resign.
I suppose we do, after all, get the leaders we deserve.
4 comments:
Cameron simply has to go, not just over his relationship with Rebekah Brooks and Coulson. He presided over the whole mess. He has no integrity. He has to go.
Coulson was not cleared by "the police" but by a dodgy policeman, himself embroiled in the scandal.
I've rarely met such unanimity of views among people of very differing political backgrounds.
Great, 'such unanimity' but no problem bombing Libya? Unanimity can still be wrong you know. 51% believing something doesn't make it right.
The blind hatred and venom displayed by a vociferous minority has made me ashamed to be British this last week or so. I suppose it's the small minded island mentality.
YES! Otherwise the suspicion and smell of corruption will remain. I was tempted to post on the matter.
So for employing an innocent man a Prime Minister should resign? How very fair minded and reasonable.
I suppose Blair and Brown should be strung up from a lamp post then for all their grovelling to Murdoch over the last 20 years or more, not to mention Mandelson.
Perhaps in future you should resist temptation.
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