This is becoming a multi-strand political story, with different facets. I intend to deal with each separately. First the media.
There is a question of whether it is right and proper to make an appointment to see and M.P., pretending to be a constituent, when one is in fact a reporter wired up with the direct intention of entrapping a democratically elected representative who has done nothing wrong, into saying stuff which might embarrass, shock or cause consternation when published. This is in no way the same as law enforcement agencies infiltrating terrorist cells or entrapping drug dealers.
To claim a false identity and tell porkies to mislead an innocent person, if not criminal, is certainly fraudulent. In this case a well meaning, if perhaps rather singular, Cabinet Minister, beguiled by two charming young ladies who led him on to talk with disarming frankness, made a fool of himself. In the claims he made of his powers to thwart the ambition of Rupert Murdoch he caused such consternation in the government that he was instantly stripped of his media powers. Why his Department had these in the first place is to do with the Mandelson empire. There is already a Department of Culture, Media and Sport, so the move is no big deal.
What is much more alarming is the panic in the government about showing that he was not impartial. Why?
Politicians are not elected to be impartial and are not supposed to be so. We want to know what their views are, what their policies are and what they would do in various circumstances. Allowing the Murdoch Empire to grow the size of the universe or stopping it its tracks, are both perfectly legitimate positions. Having not a clue either way is just plain stupid. If you want impartiality you go to the judges not the government.
Therefore there is revealed something unhealthy and unsatisfactory about the relationship between government and media. It should not be necessary for the media to present a fraudulent prospectus to get at the truth, nor should it matter a fig if a senior member of the Cabinet hates Murdoch and intends to set about clipping his wings. Was Margaret Thatcher ‘impartial’ about Scargill?
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