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Act III in a Shakespearean tragedy called "Murdoch" opens at Leveson

By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent 

Act III in a Shakespearean tragedy called “Murdoch” began to unfold in London on 24 April 2012.    Leveson Counsel Robert Jay and Judge Leveson both questioned one-time Murdoch heir apparent, James Murdoch, over a period of several hours. Rupert Murdoch followed his son on 25 Apr 2012.  

Hours telecast of James Murdoch "on the hook"  

BBC telecast James Murdoch’s testimony in its entirety.    During the afternoon, Jay focused on communications between Murdoch and his representatives, on the one hand, and government political appointees, on the other.  While there is much more to come, it may have said it all when Murdoch, asked what he thought of his PR man's comment that his procurement of confidential information had been "illegal" replied that he, Murdoch, had considered it "a joke." At the time Murdoch had already been grilled by Parliament on hackgate. 

A quasi-judicial decision bumbled, twice 

These communications concerned a quasi-judicial decision before government Ministers last year. The government had to decide whether or not to approve News Corp’s bid to completely take over the independent television network, BSkyB. News Corp already partially owned BSkyB (and still does).  Other television networks and newspapers opposed the approval.  

As a quasi-judicial decision the law’s expectation was and is that the process would be even handed, the decision maker impartial in making the decision. The law requires the decision maker to show both proponent and opponents due process of law. 

The decision first landed on the desk of Business Secretary Vince Cable. After a news sting showed Secretary cable to be biased against the bid, the Prime Minister transferred decision making to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.   

Levenson Counsel Jay quickly exposed James Murdoch’s rebuffed efforts to meet with Secretary Cable separately from the opposition.  By the character of his questions, Jay coloured these efforts “inappropriate,” and Secretary Cable’s desire to “remain independent,” “appropriate.”  

Murdoch disagreed, arguing that it was important, necessary and usual for someone making such an important decision to meet and discuss viewpoints with parties.  Murdoch testified he expected the other side was doing the same.   Murdoch also pointed out that, as it turned out, he, Murdoch, had reason to be concerned, citing Cable’s exposure as biased.   

Jay countered, pointing out that Cable’s bias led to his removal from the process. His bias and communications were inconsistent with the role of a quasi-judicial decision maker. Jay continuously described that role, throughout his examination of Murdoch, as “the judge.”  

Jay then exposed a number of “ex parte” communications with government agents, including Jeremy Hunt. These communications seem to show that others working on behalf of Hunt indiscreetly revealed the contents of confidential, high level deliberations among the government officials considering the situation.  Those communicating with Murdoch seemed to continuously reassure the mogul that things would work out.  Murdoch’s substantial anxiety on this score provided significant documentation.

The smoking gun e-mail

One specific email appears to be the smoking gun. Hunt aide Adam Smith wrote Murdoch PR consultant, disclosing the details of the speech Hunt did in fact make the very next day in the Commons. This email undercuts the spin that the claims were a PR man's braggado with his client, as does another email telling Murdoch that he, Hunt, wanted to talk with him by phone, a conversation which subsequently took place.

It should be noted that Hunt subsequently issued a statement saying this could all be explained.  Conservative MPs point out that the documents in question attribute statements to Hunt but are not from Hunt.  They in fact expressly disclaim direct contact.  Smith resigned 25 April, taking "the bullet" for the team.

It is true that even a smoking gun from an aide is not necessarily proof of Hunt's misconduct. However, the Ministerial Code makes Hunt responsible for the conduct of his aides on his behalf, so it is not a get out of jail free card.  A fair reading of Hunt's performance before the Commons on 25 April, putatively to explain and clear it all up, is that Hunt did provide some evidence that conflicts with a presumption of undue influence, but Hunt failed to clear up major elements of the issue and only intensified the calls for his head.

Again, Jay characterized Hunt as “the judge,” colouring the communications as indiscreet, ex-parte, and showing bias.  Jay further raised the comparison between the Prime Minister relieving Cable for inappropriate behaviour but not Hunt.  Hunt eventually was spared the final decision by Murdoch’s decision to withdraw the bid. 

Again, Murdoch disagreed with Jay’s characterization. Murdoch argued it was and is entirely appropriate, necessary and usual for such discussions to take place. 

Decision making in a political environment

The question whether it was, or was not, appropriate for Cable to have met with James Murdoch, or Hunt (if true) and other officials to communicate with James Murdoch in light of the quasi-judicial nature of the decision-making process goes to the heart of how public officials deal with self- interest politics.  The narrative Jay exposed is closer to situation normal than perhaps many would find comfortable to believe, and it is for good reasons. It is practical political realism.  

Change whispers the wind, but change requires uncommon courage and vision

By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent 

22 April 2012.   

“Change,” whispers the wind. "Momentum," adds the tide.  "Struggle," replies the rocks.

The French appear about to change out its President, exchanging a leader from the Left for a leader from the Right in a vote of potentially historic significance for the West.

The first round of the French presidential elections is complete. With 80% of the vote counted, a 70% turnout gave Socialist François Hollande 28.6% of the vote, the incumbent Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy 27.9%. 

Since neither have a majority, the election moves into its second round.  Only Sarkozy and Hollande remain. They have two weeks to campaign. 

Polls and pundits favour Hollande to take the second round by 7 to 8 points.  But no one knows for sure how the 20% who supported the far right candidate will vote. Sacrkozy is a fighter.  However, if Hollande does win, and this is of course not assured only projected, Hollande will take the Presidency from an incumbent who is personally unpopular, but whose economic policies represent conventional wisdom in the Eurozone. Whether or not Holland succeeds, it is clear the French vote is a vote of dissatisfaction, an electorate demand for change, whatever the direction of change turns out to be.  

If Hollande wins, it will be more than a vote of disenchantment with Conservative handling of a failing French economy.  It will be a vote for a change Left. Hollande leads from the Left. He reportedly may include Communists in his Cabinet. His election would be the first for the Left in France for a very long time.  It is already the very first time an incumbent hasn't garnered the largest vote in the first round. If he is elected, Hollande’s campaign will represent a significant bell weather for both policy and politics in the Eurozone.  His election would mark the end of what had been a trend for Conservatives across Europe. 

UK polls now seem clear that momentem has shifted  

Labour has gained an 8-10% lead over their next nearest rivals, the Conservatives. This represents a shift of 10-12 points since last month. UKIP syphoned off as much as 4% more of Tory support for a total of somewhere around 8%.  Conservative partners in Coalition, the Liberal Democrats may or may not still be ahead of UKIP, a party Liberal Democrats once mocked.  

Mark these dramatic swings down to the wide spread perception Liberal Democrats have been irrelevant, and to Conservative excesses, miscues, poor judgement, indiscipline (perhaps corruption), radical reforms, failing spin and failing management of the economy. Over 2/3 of polled voters reject government policy.

Peeling the onion: British political mood following the 2012 budget

By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent 

I recently introduced my wife to Shrek. It was another happy cross-cultural moment.  

One line from the movie particularly stands out. “Ogres are like onions ... they have layers.”   I recall Shrek’s line today as I struggle to explain the state of British politics to a readership that includes both British and American readers. It struck me as the perfect analogy.  At the moment, British politics is an ogre. 

It has layers.

First Layer 

Multiple polls from 16 April through 17 April show Labour surging to a 9-10 point lead over Conservatives. Labour support increased to around 41 to 43% of those intending to vote. Conservative support fell to 32%.  For the Tory Party this represents a swing of at least 10 points since March and a decline of 10 points since its last previous high at the general election.   Looks like good news for Labour partisans, bad for Tory. 

But ...

Second Layer

It may be actually a shaky net 2-3 point gain for Labour over its last post election high of 7 points last summer.   Both the dramatic swing in Tory fortunes from as much as 2 points ahead of Labour in March to as much as 10 points behind in April and the 9 point swing from Labour’s summer 2011 high to March, 2012 low may demonstrate a certain transient liability in British voter mood.  

On the other hand, a poll out in advance form the night of 19 April shows Labour opening up a 13 point lead over the Conservatives. If this lead holds it will mark a significant movement toward Labour. The detail was not available as of the writing of this article. For the time being, even a 13 point lead, given standard of error, is as consistent with transient liability as it may be with a more significant long term shift. That analysis will have to wait for the future.

 Third Layer

Each of the swings appears to have been triggered by a crisis in leadership credibility.  

Labour lost its lead as a new leader struggled to establish his personal credibility. His party struggled with who it wanted to be when it grew up. In its thrashing about Labour alienated elements of its base while failing to impress the swing voters it so desperately sought.   At the same time as Labour struggled with itself, a confident and united Coalition portrayed the crisis in the Eurozone as vindication of Coalition policies, aided and abetted in no small measure by “experts” and a media perhaps infatuated with the prevailing economic view point. Many shared the belief that Labour had caused the country’s economic woes. 

Conservatives lost their lead from a combination of missteps and policy excesses leading up to and including the budget. They shook both the working harmony of the Coalition and the reputations of the Prime Minister and Chancellor for competency, honesty, and interest in the general good.  I  documented these crescendoing mini disasters in previous articles, warning weeks ago of the consequences of what I saw to be Cabinet indiscipline.  

Conservatives did not recover from these mini disasters over the two week Easter break.  Worse for the Conservatives, the damage seemed to harden into a public perception of incompetence. Conservatives themselves seemed to validate this assessment as they attempted to spin the outcry as the consequence of an incoherent Coalition narrative, the failure of the Communications team, or the Prime Minister’s hands off approach and use of Civil Servants to compose the Number 10 Policy Team.  This spin just served to reinforce the impression of incompetence. 

The polls that show Conservatives losing 10 points also show a fourth party, UKIP (The UK Independent Party) gaining as much as 7 points from last summer. They also show UKIP drawing even with or leading the Liberal Democrats at 8-9%. This latter poll standing is a pitiful remnant of the Liberal Democrats’ pre-general election high of 23%.   

It is debatable what this shift to UKIP means for the respective partisan fortunes of UKIP and Tory Parties.  The 19 April poll shows UKIP support falling back to 7%. But whatever the debatable points concerning UKIP's fortunes, it is conventional wisdom the Liberal Democrats lost support because the Lib-Dems are considered a) indistinguishable from the Conservatives on all points of interest to voters, and b) so infatuated with power as to be untrustworthy with stated commitments.  

I would submit that is also the meaning of the 10-12 point reversal of the Conservative’s March lead, as it was with the electorate's general election disenchantment with Labour. In short, it is at least as likely voter confidence in Coalition competence and reliability has been shaken by missteps and excesses as it is Labour has gained in voter confidence. 

 Fourth Layer

The shifts in partisan fortunes disguise a British electorate that at least through the 17 April poll remains evenly divided between Center to Right and Center to Left. 

Although former Labour activists helped to form UKIP, UKIP today is a determinedly Euroskeptic Party in most ways philosophically similar to the Conservatives.  Its leadership is substantially if not entirely made up of former Tories.   

More importantly, the total for Conservatives, UKIP, and Liberal Democrats has remained unchanged for almost the entire duration of the Coalition since almost the first months of the Coalition as it became clear the course the Coalition was setting. Soon thereafter the aggregate total settled in to approximately 50% of the electorate. 

What do these three parties have in common?  A commitment to free market economic liberalism and the related “Protestant” work ethic. While the Parties’ separate market shares may shift between them, the shift does not represent so much rejection of the broad economic policy framework as disillusionment with the abilities or character of those executing that framework.  

As long as 50% of the British public “buy in” to this paradigm British policy makers, regardless of Party, will not be able to introduce policies that stray very far left from the framework and its assumptions. Even if the 19 April 13 point lead continues or grows, this by itself would not necessarily indicate a rethink of the prevailing paradigm, although the aggregate for Tory, Liberal Democrat and UKIP would fall below 50%.

World to Washington: Don’t Back the Spy Chief in Egypt

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

So Omar Suleiman is now in the race for President of Egypt—and by popular demand?  He’s got signatures?  He’s got a crowd of boosters? He’s bending—oh so graciously!—to the people’s will?  Believe that and I’ll tell you another! Omar Suleiman was Hosni Mubarak’s chief of intelligence for 18 years. This guy knows all of the tricks of the trade, none nice or straightforward, as too many Egyptians all too painfully know.

American officialdom is also aware of Suleiman’s talents and proclivities.  He was there for the C.I.A.  when the U.S. wished to grill suspected terrorists in dark holes far from the prying eyes of the U.S. press or anyone else who might be a mite uncomfortable about condoning torture or using information so tainted.  This little favor was known by the once innocuous term “rendition.”

Why Suleiman?  Why Now?

All that being the case and in the absence of any inside information, I confess that, to me,  the Suleiman candidacy smells like a rat dressed in a badly tattered and besmirched stars-and-stripes.  Here’s one fear that might be agitating U.S. operatives: if Islamists control Egypt’s parliament and the presidency, they might take great pleasure in spilling those unpalatable beans.  Not as allegation.  Not as supposition.  As fact, demonstrable, undeniable.

Consider the timing of Suleiman’s candidacy.  It’s a last minute thing.  The presidential election is just around the corner.  The Muslim Brotherhood, contrary to well-publicized promises, though unsurprisingly in the world of realpolitik, has decided to field a candidate, a well-known rich businessman.  At this point, the odds on Amr Moussa, a secular candidate who might have out polled a very attractive Salafist candidate, plummet from possible to well nigh hopeless.  The main trouble is that Moussa is only marginally more attractive than a master spy.  Yes, he’s a former Arab league chief, but he was also one of Mubarak’s inner circle.  A former foreign minister, in fact, not the sort of bio to fire up young idealists or anyone else hoping for a non-Islamist change in the status quo ante Tahrir Square. 

In Bradford, the disenfranchised make a choice from no choice

By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent

30 March 2012. Bradford.  Respect Party candidate, “Gorgeous George” George Galloway takes a predicted “safe” Labour MP seat away from Labour, beating his nearest opponent by over 10,000 votes.  

 The victory that "shouldn't" have been

Galloway’s victory shocked the political elite (professional “pol,” pundit, and press).  The seat had been Labour’s for some time. Only the week prior Labour predicted victory, allegedly basing its predictions on assurances from local pols.  

It is not yet clear how the pols got it so very wrong. It just may be Labour counted the chickens of a fortnight of bad press for the Tory/Liberal Democrat government before they hatched for Galloway instead of Labour. 

But why Labour lost, despite Labour’s own agonized paroxysm of navel gazing and Tory’s glib spinning, is not the important question posed by Galloway’s victory.

The focus on Labour hid a bigger and wider victory. Galloway trounced the Tory candidate by an even greater margin than he trounced his Labour rival. The Liberal Democrat lost so badly his campaign forfeited its filing deposit.   

The Tory Party leader, Baroness Warsi, spun the Tory loss, pointing out her party never had an expectation of victory. True, but it doesn’t explain the margin of victory, does it.  It also begs the question what, if any, role can be ascribed to a reaction to Local Government Minister Eric Pickles' former role as the leader of the Bradford Council. Bradford is among the most segregated and deprived communities in Britain.

The Liberal Democrats simply slunk off to lick their wounds and worry about the future.

The pundits were (as ever) quick to explain the victory in line with their published pre-election views. The Guardian concluded that overly cautious “politics as usual,” with its fear of upsetting Middle England, had “turned poison” for Tory, Labour, and Liberal Democrats alike, thus spreading the embarrassment among the parties.  In a separate article the Guardian attributed the victory to Muslim women.  

The Mail picked up on the Muslim bit. The Mail submerged the victory in a diatribe on a Moslem immigration that had not been properly assimilated.   

The Sun and Telegraph picked up on the theme of the woman’s vote, but both used it to highlight Galloway’s subsequent announcement of a fourth marriage.  The Telegraph injected a lament into its “examination” of the question, “why women can’t resist political philanderers.”  Hence, the story wasn’t an “outsider” scoring a dramatic victory over established parties. The story was a smooth-talking philanderer deceiving vulnerable women.    The Sun revealed and reveled in claims by Galloway’s third wife that Galloway had never properly divorced her.   By the 5th of April this had become the story in the Guardian, also.   (While not excusing the allegation if proven), perish the thought that Galloway’s victory could have any lessons beyond the puerile. 

It seems to me that the pundits never really so much neutrally analyzed what happened as set its implications for the established parties at “de minimus.”  It was the victory that shouldn’t have happened. It was a “one off.” It was a victory that wouldn’t have happened if Bradford had been in its right mind.  Gawd, did they every blow it.

Galloway's "take"

I understand why Gorgeous George, as he is called, might make one’s skin crawl. The silver tongue, the impassioned anti-establishment rhetoric, the volatile personal style, the shades on a cloudy day, these remind me of Jim Jones (not a positive memory). They evidence the unpredictable, and maybe the out on the edge.   

But the problem is, he did win. He won by 10,000 votes. The pundits did not expect it. This victory cannot simply be tarnished with mud, hoping it was all a bad dream. It means something, holds lessons, intuition suggests, for those in power.  

Aung San Suu Kyi: Should She or Shouldn’t She?

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Some Americans boast of not voting in 2010.  Others strut and say they’ve never voted!  The system is too corrupt, too unresponsive, too dirty.  Idiots! They’re so pure they don’t exist, politically.  I wonder sometimes if WhirledView has any impact. And yet, without tossing a few well-chosen stones into the ocean, how to make a splash?

What's in a Win?

Just such questions of purity and efficacy have arisen in the aftermath of the recent Burmese elections.  Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League of Democracy have won 43 of the 44 seats available to civilian voters, which leaves 80% of the seats in Parliament controlled by the military (to say nothing of the presidency and other offices held by figures who have “resigned” from the military).  Suu Kyi herself has pointed out that the elections were flawed.  Observers from the European Union stopped short of praising the process as anything more than a step in the right direction. 

The elections, which were not nation-wide, evidently, were scheduled for many districts where cynics would have predicted no hope for reform-minded candidates, a devious way of tipping the scales even further against the opposition.  Most hard-headed observers expected voters in the four districts around the new capital and those in districts hosting military installations to back regime sympathizers.  Who employs them?  Who fills their rice bowls?  You don’t usually bite the hand that feeds you.  In addition, analysts assumed, the people in hilly tribal areas would vote for fellow tribals, not a Berman lowlander, whatever her glamor or her opposition to a repressive army.  This, too, would hurt Suu Kyi’s NLD.

Voters Thought for Themselves

The “realists” turned out to be wrong.  Suu Kyi and her party members won all but one available district, a Shan constituency, which did indeed send a tribal to the new Parliament, although the National League of Democracy won in a neighboring Shan district.  The NLD even came out ahead in those army-dominated districts.  This achievement should remind us all that military men and women can think for themselves, even if they spend most of their time following orders.

But let’s not over-hype the election results. Aung San Suu Kyi and her party have won a resounding victory in an election guaranteeing, by its very design, that she and her NLD colleagues will be hopelessly outnumbered in Parliament.  This clever bit of engineering on the part of the regime has led to the big question: should The Lady claim the seat she has won—or should she not, lest she legitimize a junta that kept her under house arrest for two decades and treated too many other justice-seekers worse by far? 

Is She Just a Tool?

Some analysts worry that Suu Kyi is being manipulated by a deeply-hated regime that has turned Myanmar into an economic basket case during its decades of iron-fisted control.  The Generals, they believe, have dug themselves into a hole they can’t get out of by themselves.  However, with Suu Kyi as a decorative but ineffectual figurehead in Parliament,  it may be that the US and other sources of economic aid will be sufficiently charmed and bamboozled to lift sanctions, allow trade and investment and provide the country with humanitarian assistance. 

What a contrast to the regime’s policy in the wake of the devastating cyclone Nargis in 2008, when the Generals preferred to allow people to die rather than risk the interference that would inevitably come with accepting commensurate emergency aid!  No doubt this callous policy lost them more than a few votes in the recent election.  Having monks shot during the Saffron uprising a few years ago didn’t help either. 

Reckoning with Russia

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Well before Vladimir Putin’s formal re-relection to the Russian Presidency earlier this month, the Russian foreign policy machine vociferously complained and continuously whined about western interference in Russia’s internal politics.  The foreign policy line emanating from the top was designed to play upon deeply held Russian popular angst of intervention by foreign powers.

As a part of Putin’s election campaign, he charged that the West had launched a nefarious campaign to undermine his candidacy as well as Russian political institutions in order, presumably, to weaken and perhaps destroy the country.

These charges are now being aimed at Michael McFaul, President Obama’s new activist US Ambassador to Moscow who is being targeted in a Russian domestic propaganda campaign by the Putin controlled Russian media for meeting with dissidents.

Propagating the Kremlin line 

Unfortunately, this very same Kremlin anti-western interference line has been bought and is being propagated by individuals in the American media.  The accusation is being framed as an either/or dichotomy – the kind Western media love to broadcast because, well a simple dichotomy is understandable to their average reader.

Former Business Week Moscow correspondent Paul Starobin made this case during a March 29 talk at the Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston.  But Starobin is not the only western journalist to buy into the Kremlin “us-or-them” line – and that’s not the only part of Putin’s foreign policy line that Starobin ascribes to either.

The gist of the argument is that if the US wants to have good relations with Russia, it needs to cease and desist contacts with and support for Russian pro-democracy activists.