More Iraq inquiry fallout

Today's Independent reports David Miliband admitting that the government was wrong to try to hold the Iraq inquiry behind closed doors.

Yesterday's Spectator carried a piece by John Kampfner which claimed that the attempt was part of an explicit deal agreed between Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson, who in return protected Brown in his hour of need. It's a good story, but the flaw in it is that the government has been spinning for some time that the inquiry was to be in secret.

At the end of the Independent piece, Brown's spokesman also describes the story, but for different reasons:

We would certainly deny the suggestion that the Prime Minister has done any sort of deal," the spokesman said. We are not having the inquiry in secret so the whole premise of the article does seem to fall down on that basic point."

The prime minister's spokesman seems to believe that if he rewrites history to pretend that an open inquiry was always the plan, everyone else will forget that Brown inisted last week that the inquiry must take place in secret.

Who says so?

I've done a piece this morning for IndyMinds, looking in some detail at a quite crass piece of spin from the Indy on Sunday's John Rentoul. His piece is a shocking example of the kind of thing I'm always banging on about here - the tendency to tell us what journalists "know", "feel", "hope" or "believe".

But what's the answer?

The Guardian's Peter Preston blames the media for the tendency of politicians to avoid answering the questions they are actually asked. He cites that examples of ministers Shriti Vadera and Margaret Beckett, both lambasted for saying that there might be some small reasons for optimism.

As Preston points out, both made highly qualified comments, which the media took massively out of context. Vadera answered a very leading question and more or less discounted the proposition that there was much to shout about. Had she gone any further in saying that there was no cause for optimism, she would have been badly talking the economy down.

Preston bemoans the effect of all this:

Yet, can a politician afford to venture such thoughts in even the most hesitant, deeply nuanced way? Obviously not. Let's snarl at Shriti and bang on about Beckett. Let's play the accustomed game of constant evasion and brain-dead assertion. Let's put any hint of complexity or modest intelligence into cold storage. This is politics after all, not life.

Are we going to hell in a handcart, minister? With the greatest respect, Jeremy, I think I'll get Lord Mandelson to not answer that ...

I remember seeing Mandelson on Newsnight declining to answer a difficult question by pretending that he couldn't hear it.

Mandy not trusted?

There's quite a non story in the papers today, presumably initiated by the opposition, about Peter Mandelson not being given the role of anti-corruption champion within the government.

I must confess I did not know there was such a role but to suggest that it should be given to the business secretary because it was previously given to John Hutton is unconvincing. As Number 10 has pointed out, before Hutton, Hilary Benn (see below) had the job.

I don't think the job should sit with the business secretary at all, as that job is primarily focused on supporting big business whatever the ethical costs. Not that I trust Jack Straw any further than I could throw him.

Mandy on the other hand is the innocent victim of a smear campaign...