What we think
BEFORE CHRISTMAS, and possibly as early as next Friday, the prime minister of the government of the United Kingdom will be interviewed by police from Scotland Yard. The team headed by assistant commissioner John Yates is investigating whether or not the Labour Party secretly promised peerages to those wealthy donors who helped bail it out of a financial crisis prior to the 2005 general election.
On paper Labour looks a bankrupt party. But more worrying are the political implications of Yates' inquiry for Tony Blair's immediate legacy. Among New Labour's senior ranks, the Scotland Yard inquiry is being dismissed as an issue of accountancy, not political corruption. The government continues to insist no law has been broken. That claim may yet be tested before a court of law.
After a nine-month investigation, Scotland Yard appears determined that nothing less than a full and detailed account of its work will finally be published in January of next year. That report may make uncomfortable reading for Blair and the advisers and colleagues around him.
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However, the final decision on whether the inquiry holds enough credible evidence to merit a prosecution will not fall to the police. It will technically be the office of the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, which will take the final decision in a case that has taken in some unexpected destinations. This, clearly, is an unsatisfactory conclusion: an inquiry centred on the government should not be resolved by a member of that government.
Such a contortion of justice merely highlights the flaws almost built in to Britain's constitutional practices; flaws that evidently need to be addressed sooner rather than later. As Goldsmith has shown on a previous issue - namely the decision on the legality of the war in Iraq - he cannot always be relied upon to be impartial.
The cash-for-honours scandal is an equally contentious issue and if Goldsmith wants to demonstrate both his legal integrity and his political sense of justice, he should stand aside and allow an independent authority to judge if this inquiry's gathered evidence holds the potential for a successful prosecution.
So far Goldsmith has indicated he will not pass on this crucial decision. But if he does not, any decision he takes will be suspect. Justice in this potentially explosive case needs to be seen to be done, and a decision based on the fake independence of the attorney general does not hold this key quality.
The law officers of the government are supposed to be the guardians of our justice system, offering advice and legal wisdom to the government. They are not there to get the government off the hook when and where inconvenient problems arise. If Goldsmith is allowed to judge if Blair and company have broken the law, it will once again demonstrate this government's belief that it is above the law. It isn't.
