Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Tim has emailed me about my post "Where have you been Tim Garton Ash?". I wrote a grumpy response to his call to defend our liberties where he concluded "Let the fightback begin". Tim writes "what on earth do you mean by saying I've 'changed my mind'? When did I hint in any manner, shape or form that I have any sympathy with an over-intrusive big brother national security state?" He points out that just because he didn't write about it every week does not mean he has long been a clear spoken advocate of free speech.
This raises lots of important issues in a way I like, from an immediate example, so this will be quite a long response.
First, Tim's is an eloquent article and it is right, we need a fightback to protect our liberties, and even if others have already started it everyone should read what Tim says, it is here.
Tim is also right that he has been an outstanding advocate of liberty and free speech, and, more than that, a thoughtful one who has done the work. Unlike most of us in the relative comfort of the United Kingdom (so far, at least) he knew at first hand in East Germany what it was like to be spied on and wrote a fine book on going through his Stasi file. Particularly to be recommended in the present circumstances is the penultimate chapter where he asks MI5 if they have a file on him and they say "yes". He glimpses the coming of computerised surveillance here in his homeland and is more than troubled.
So, apologies Tim, I was not suggesting at all that you had changed your mind on the principles. It did seem to me that you must have had a change of heart on how relevant they are here and now in Britain. After all, it is over two years since Blair broke up the cross-party agreement to reach a consensual response to the 7/7 attacks, and announced that "the rules of the game have changed". (For a good account see Peter Orborne's CPS pamphlet on 'The Use and Abuse of Terror'). Since then many have raised the alarm and your pulpit has - on this issue - been relatively silent. And why not? The fact that you have a column does not mean you have to write about everything. Indeed, it is refreshing when columnists do not to rush to judgement.
My concern compressed different things, one present and one historical. The present one has recently been taken up by Sunny Hundal in the launch of the Liberal Conspiracy in his call for coalition building on the left of centre and positive linking to each other's arguments. On the government's threat to our fundamental liberties others have already raised the alarm. It is really important to recognise this, even if they may be over-egging it for your taste: critical solidarity, making people feel less alone, respecting those who have paid the price in effort and concern of being first, all this has to be part of any successful "fightback". There is too much romantic attachment to being 'the lone voice in the wilderness' who is also the heroic standard bearer. Too often people, I have seen this especially on the left, issue calls for forces-to-be-joined while wanting everyone to join them. It can be unfair, wasteful and ineffective - to put it mildly.
My historical complaint has nothing to do with Tim's post but it nags at me and I expect it to carry on doing so. It concerns the Iraq war. Here many of us made a judgement: Afghanistan, yes; Iraq, no. I emphasise the word "judgement". Now what is happening, and I can cite plenty of examples, is that those who supported the war are permitted to wisely criticise its implementation, but those who opposed it are seen as headbangers. Who now says about Robin Cook (though he was an architect of Kosovo and the new model of intervention), that "Robin was right about Iraq"? I feel there is a wider media culture of vaporising the memory of those who think for themselves by stereotyping them. It is therefore all the more important to challenge this. In particular, this relates to Henry Porter's reporting. He started to write about the Commons for the Observer as an outsider expected his MPs to be the upholders of democratic rule and discovered that they were not. I recall being discomforted by his first columns - his call for a fightback. He made an early judgement call two years ago. This has irritated the established media who didn't. There was a feeling of being "upstaged". Porter's arguments became Henry's song, a sort of prejudice, the quality of his judgement and therefore the need to respond was patronised. Sorry, just like with the Iraq war, in the case of our liberties it looks as if reason, justice, good sense, realpolitic even, is with the opposition. Tim, welcome aboard the good ship Fightback - especially because you have been an outstanding, historic supporter of liberty and opponent of the big brother state.
