Anthony Barnett (London, OK): A central argument in Peter Oborne's book Triumph of the Political Class is that an elite of political-media-administrators is creating a 'new corruption', a self-regulating racket for whom the ordinary rules do not apply. When I read the book I wondered if the thesis was over-stated. But when you look around, it seems to explain so much. Jonathan Aitken could have advised the Tories on crime and rehabilitation, and why not, they need to hear from criminals, restorative justice involves engaging with causes as well as consequences. I'd have applauded this. But by making him chairman of their policy committee they are rehabilitating him, giving him a redemptive authority that would not be permitted to those outside the political class. (Max Hastings makes a similar point in today's Guardian). Peter Preston, who ran the original story in the Guardian that Aitken defied and lied about makes a simple objection in the Observer: we still do not know what he was doing in Paris as the guest of the Saudis when he was a Minister of the Crown. Aitken was let off by the utterly feeble questioning of Jim Naughtie on the Today programme. Instead of asking him the straight question and insisting on an answer, he was allowed the Tony Blair escape. What an old story, said the liar, it is time to move on. And he got away with it!
But a more serious breech of the rules is Lord Ashcroft's. He pledged that in return for becoming a legislator he would make himself a domicile of the country and pay his taxes. Eight years later he still has not done so. How can he get away with it? David Cameron, it seems, flew to Paris to watch the Rugby final on Ashcroft's private plane. Air cheat? Air get away with it?
Tory sleaze is being rehabilitated by Labour's reorganisation of the gravy plane. There was a long, embarrassed mea culpa by Ian Katz about how he got too close to Sir Ian Blair of the Met.
I first met Ian Blair at the London home of Lord Levy. It was long before Yates of the Yard had begun his dogged marathon through the corridors of power, and we had been invited to one of Levy's famous Friday night dinners.It was a curious affair. Among the guests were a European ambassador, a judge and a private hospital baron and Black Rod (who revealed a gratifyingly bawdy sense of humour).
Famous? I'm sure you knew about them. It seems they had better discussions that at Tony Blair's cabinet meetings. Sir Ian and ordinary Ian were both there as well, of course, participating in one of the ingratiating circles of the political class as Oborne defines it. Did I say that Lord Levy was known to be selling peerages as they supped? No, I did not say anything of the sort.
