The death of trust - and how to rebuild it.

A letter in the News and Star by a Dr K Davis, headlined “Terrorist scare was bogus” suggested that the recent airport security alarm and associated police raids were not based on a real threat, and inferred that this had been manufactured by the government for political purposes. The letter appears to have been written before any charges had been brought and before it was announced that bomb-making equipment had been found: it predicted that no evidence would materialise and all those arrested would be released without charge.

The fact that Dr Davis could write such a the letter, and get it printed (It appeared on August 19) demonstrates how far Tony Blair’s government has damaged trust in politics in this country – not because the letter was right, but because it demonstrated that sane people can take seriously the possibility that the government and police would organise a large number of raids, arrest twenty people, and disrupt the travel arrangements of many thousands, on the basis of such a monstrous lie.

Unfortunately, the same government took us to war, sending thousands of troops into another country at the cost of over a hundred British lives and nobody knows how many Iraqi ones, on the basis of evidence which was, to put it politely, grossly overstated and seriously inaccurate. Once something like that has happened, to expect that official pronouncements will carry the same moral and persuasive authority is to be seriously naive.

I know plenty of people who supported the Iraq war at the time because they could not believe that any British prime minister, even Blair, would take us to war without being certain that his allegations about the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were true. When it became clear that the weapons of mass destruction which Blair told the House of Commons could be launched within 45 minutes did not exist, many of those who had supported the war up to that point were furious. Naturally, they
still feel conned, angry, and distrustful of anything any politician says. Even when the government is telling the truth.

When the central plank of the justification for war in Iraq was shown to be nonsense, and Labour gave no sign of an apology or real contrition but simply changed the justification, they did more than damage their own credibility. They seriously injured trust in the whole political system. Then add to this the fact that the brightest young people who will be the leaders of tomorrow have been sold out at two consecutive general elections because Labour first promised not to introduce student tuition fees, then promised not to increase them, and broke both promises. This more or less guarantees that there will be a high degree of cynicism about politics among educated Britons for at least a generation.

And add to this the fact that after the Iraq war the chairman of the committee which produced the "Dodgy dossier" about Iraq not merely wasn't sacked but was promoted.

Now I admit that if the individual concerned had been sacked while no heads rolled among ministers, every opposition politician in the country (including me) would have accused the government of making a civil servant a scapegoat for their own mistakes. But to promote someone who has just presided over the worst intelligence failure for 20 years, and especially to do so just after he gave evidence helpful to the government at a public inquiry, sends the most dreadful signal both to the public and to public servants.

Any one of the three things mentioned above would have been a serious blow to trust in politics. Put them all together and it is no surprise that respect for polticians and the system as a whole is at an all time low.

But before we assume that everything the government says is therefore wrong ...

While anti-terrorist police, like any other human beings, can make mistakes – the shooting of an innocent Brazilian being the worst recent example – I do not believe the British police would have mounted an operation of this magnitude on political orders without real evidence of a threat.

The fact that the government and intelligence services in Pakistan, who are very proud of their Islamic faith, held a press conference to claim that they had provided some of the evidence which lead to the raids shows pretty conclusively that this particular alert was not an attempt to discredit the Muslim community.

Since the letter from Dr Davis was published, police have in fact lodged charges against 11 individuals, eight of them with crimes which include conspiracy to murder. Without wishing to pre-judge the guilt or innocence of the accused or anyone else who may have to stand a criminal trial, the fact that the police found enough evidence to charge 11 people does appear to confirm that this is not another Forest Gate.

Dr Davis says that “wolf” has been cried too often. True, but it is because there really is a terrorist wolf that crying “wolf” in error is such a serious mistake.

Restoring trust in politics is not going to be easy.
But it has to be done. For a start, politicians of all parties need to think carefully about their promises and only offer what can be delivered.

And all citizens would be wise to think equally carefully before jumping to the conclusion that anything we hear is true, or that it is false.

Comments

Chris Whiteside said…
Since I originally posted this item there have of course been several more people charged.

Being charged is not the same as being guilty and it is most important that there is and should be seen to be a fair trial. It is increasingly clear that the authorities had good reason to suspect that there really was a plot.

There has been much debate on airline and train security. We all need to be vigilant - but one challenge is going to be to look out for trouble without assuming that every young asian man with a rucksack is a suicide bomber.

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