The Brutality of the Present Political System Exposed

Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

The Brutality of the Present Political System Exposed

For Your Reference:
Lord Hutton

The death of Dr David Kelly, the government’s weapons expert, has not just further undermined the credibility of Tony Blair and the government. It has further exposed the dishonesty, injustice, intrigue, duplicity and brutality at the heart of the present political system.

What Dr Kelly knew and could reveal can at the present time only be speculated on. Will Lord Hutton’s inquiry be a means for uncovering this or keeping it covered up? Already there are signs that Tony Blair is anxious that Lord Hutton should not step beyond the brief the government provides him with. A weapons expert educated at Oxford, Dr Kelly was apparently a religious man who followed the Baha’i faith, which rejects suicide in any circumstances. What, however, is very evident is that whether Dr Kelly did indeed die at his own hand or was the victim of something more sinister, the pressure of the tangled net of political circumstances in which he became enmeshed amounted to him being the victim of the state and being terrorised by its agencies.

The facts of the case of Dr Kelly’s death reveal that he had been thrown to the wolves, while everyone is disclaiming responsibility and minding their own backs, whether it be the Prime Minister, the MoD, the Foreign Office, or the press. Commentators have pointed out, for example, that Dr Kelly was not protected by Sir Kevin Tebbit, the permanent secretary at MoD, who, it is said, was the only person with the stature to challenge the political pressure being exerted by Downing Street.

Tony Blair and the government are fond of portraying one country after another as "tyrannies" while Britain is the model of democracy. The ideology of anti-communism portrayed and portrays socialist societies as dictatorships of dark forces where dissidents are disappeared. In the context of the "war against terrorism" and the crusade against the possession of "weapons of mass destruction", not only has the government found it unacceptable that its so-called "integrity" should be called into question and any dissent from outside stifled, but its internal politics have taken on the most anti-human aspects. Stories abound in the press of the "dirty business" of politics, of the "new brutalism", of intimidating phone calls to journalists, of "putting the boot" into Cabinet ministers, of gangster-style methods. This goes hand in hand with the concentration of executive power in the hands of the Prime Minister and his hand-picked advisors, the control of the civil service by them, and internecine warfare between the various arms of the state institutions, such as the intelligence services and government.

The fuelling of people’s contempt for politics and politicians is dangerous when it has the effect of leaving the field of politics prey to the understanding that it is only open to the career politicians who lack integrity. Elected representatives of the working class and people themselves are required to exercise domination and control over the government machinery and establish enlightened methods of conduct as against the present law of the jungle. This is an essential part of the renewal of the present political system and challenging the political power of the rich and the elite.

The judge who will lead the inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly is the Right Honourable The Lord Hutton who has been a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary since 1997. He was the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland from 1988 to 1997. He became a life peer in January 1997 as Baron Hutton, of Bresagh in the County of Down.

He is 72 years old and was called to the bar in Northern Ireland in 1954 and by 1970 was a QC, before being called to the bar in England soon afterwards.

He had acted as a legal adviser to the home affairs ministry of the Stormont administration in Northern Ireland and had acted for the United Kingdom when it stood accused at the European Court of Human Rights of the maltreatment of internees.

Lord Hutton became a High Court judge for Northern Ireland in 1979 before replacing Sir Robert Lowry as Northern Ireland's Lord Chief Justice in 1988.

He has ruled on prominent cases, such as dismissing the appeal of Private Lee Clegg, jailed for shooting a teenage joyrider. Private Clegg was later cleared of the murder by Lord Hutton's successor.

He became an English Lord of Appeal in 1997, and contributed to two high-profile rulings.

He was one of the law lords who criticised Lord Hoffman for his role in the extradition proceedings against General Augusto Pinochet. Lord Hoffman had contributed to a decision that the former Chilean head of state could be arrested and extradited for crimes against humanity. Lord Hutton said "public confidence in the integrity of the administration of justice would be shaken" if Lord Hoffman's ruling were not overturned because of his links with Amnesty International.

Lord Hutton was also involved in the ruling that David Shayler, the former MI5 agent, could not argue he was acting in the public interest by revealing secrets.