Monthly Archives: May 2012

Colin Thain, Head of Department at POLSIS, suggests that the Leveson Inquiry could end up by being one of the most significant inquiries into the nature and rules of the game of British politics.

Forget about all the plays and musicals on in the west end of London, the place for high drama and theatre is Court 73 of the Royal Courts of Justice (the ‘Old Bailey) just off the Strand (and appropriately enough near Fleet Street) in London. Here sits the Leveson Inquiry, headed by Lord Justice Leveson. He opened his inquiry on 14 November 2011, with the words: “The press provides an essential check on all aspects of public life. That is why any failure within the media affects all of us. At the heart of this Inquiry, therefore, may be one simple question: who guards the guardians?”

Prime Minister Cameron set up a two-part inquiry investigating the role of the press and police in the phone-hacking scandal, on 13 July 2011. Under the Inquiries Act 2005 it has the power to summon witnesses including reporters, politicians, police officers, civil servants, newspaper proprietors, actors, celebrities and members of the public, who give evidence under oath and in public. Part one of the inquiry examines the ‘culture, practices and ethics of the media’. Lord Justice Leveson will examine ‘the relationship of the press with the public, police and politicians’ Supported by a panel of six independent assessors, he will ‘make recommendations on the future of press regulation and governance consistent with maintaining freedom of the press and ensuring the highest ethical and professional standards.’ Lord Leveson has organised the inquiry around four ‘modules’:

• Module 1: The relationship between the press and the public and looks at phone-hacking and other potentially illegal behaviour.
• Module 2: The relationships between the press and police and the extent to which that has operated in the public interest.
• Module 3: The relationship between press and politicians.
• Module 4: Recommendations for a more effective policy and regulation that supports the integrity and freedom of the press while encouraging the highest ethical standards.

The first two modules have been the focus of the inquiry until now, with module 3 evidence due to complete at the end of June and module 4 will be discussed in July 2012, with the inquiry ending in July.

Public inquiries are a key part of the British way of doing politics and government. They are set up for a mixture of reasons – as a way of genuinely looking at miscarriages of justice or systemic administrative or policy failure, as way to get a Government or Prime Minister off the hook, as a result of public opinion, and as a way of embarrassing previous administrations. In other words, highly charged and highly political. Over the post war period many stand out. Some have been damp squibs – the Hutton Inquiry on weapons of mass destruction and the death of Dr David Kelly, and the 1982 Franks inquiry into the Falklands war stand out here. Some have profoundly changed the nature of politics or the law or have closed searing episodes in public affairs – for example the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday, set up in 1998, the Scarman Report on the 1981 Brixton riots, and the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry led by Sir William Macpherson which reported in 1999.

Leveson, alongside the Chilcott inquiry on the war in Iraq (due to report imminently) promises to be in the groundbreaking category. Why?

Firstly, because the transcripts and rulings of the inquiry read like a graduate guide to key aspects of British politics. They provide primary, raw material for an assessment of the role of the press in national life. They promise to open up discussion of the relationship between the police and the press, and politicians and the press.

So the classic undergraduate question – ‘how powerful is the media in politics?’ – can be answered with the evidence given by Rupert Murdoch head of News International, the editors of the Daily Express, Mail, Mirror, Star, Guardian, and the National Union of Journalists, Press Association, BBC and ITN, as well as former Communications Directors in No 10 such as Alastair Campbell and Andy Coulson. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has given written evidence and today Tony Blair is giving oral evidence.

Just under 500 people and organisations have been before the inquiry in person or have submitted written evidence; many have done both. All the major police forces in GB and many of the most senior officers and former senior officers are represented in the list of evidence. The notes provided by the QC for the inquiry (now a YouTube hit) Robert Jay before each ‘module’ run to pages of closely argued assessments of the key issues. Read for example the 27 pages he devotes to discussing contacts between newspapers and politicians (Opening Submission: Module 3). The inquiry is the stuff of contemporary political analysis – from the sociology of who has been involved in the inquiry – pressure groups, members of the ‘establishment’, the press – to discourse and textual analysis of what they have said. There is a rich resource readily at our disposal.

Secondly, because it is as close as we have been in the UK to a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission to provide transparency and closure on the intrusive methods of the press over the past twenty years as they have affected vulnerable families. The McCann family and the Dowler family’s evidence provided heart rending accounts.

Thirdly, because of the anticipated and real impacts to political practice as a result of the on-going nature of the inquiry. We have already had a clash between Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Inquiry over the status of Secretary of State Hunt’s place in the schedule of oral testimony. On that it is 1-0 to Lord Leveson. It looks very likely that the evidence of Jeremy Hunt will add further to the debate about the way the bid for BSkyB was handled by the Coalition Government.

With Greek political leaders entering a fresh round of negotiations aimed at forming a government after last week’s election, speculation that Greece is on the verge of exiting the Euro has reached fever pitch. Here, Dr David Toke, Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Birmingham, explains why he believes this talk is overblown.

A lot of nonsense is being talked about the Greeks being about to exit the euro. This is rather less likely than Wolverhampton Wanderers winning the Premier League in two years time. It is even less likely than Germany leaving the euro. Indeed if you ask the question: ‘who has threatened to leave the euro? – the German Chancellor or the Leader of the (anti-austerity) Greek Syriza Party? the answer is, perhaps a surprise to most people, ‘Angela Merkel’ (albeit in a passing moment of irritation). Now, Germany leaving the euro, by the way, is not very likely either, through probably slightly more likely than Wolverhampton Wanderers winning the Premier League in two years time. Germany could survive outside the euro, well, with a rather nasty shock and harsher trading conditions after things stabilised – it would not be much fun for them.

More to the current point, however, Greece would do much less well outside the euro. Indeed the large majority of Greeks know this and do not want to take British eurosceptics’ advice to reinvent the drachma. So, if the Greeks do not want to leave the euro, will they be forced to leave the eurozone by the EU itself? The answer to that is a very firm ‘No’. Why? because there simply is no mechanism to force any country to leave the eurozone. Sure, if there were Treaty changes made to establish such a process, it would be possible. However making changes to EU Treaties takes years to do even when all the leaders of all the EU countries agree to sign up to them. When some disagree, it becomes impossible. Indeed the first to refuse to cooperate would be the Greeks themselves, not to mention the Irish who have to have referendums on Treaty changes….and I think they would vote no! I rather doubt that other countries would agree….Italy? Spain? Portugal?….France?…….no, it does not even merit a second thought. EU Commission President Barosso has said as much.

So, are there other plausible conditions whereby somehow Greece might find the situation makes them leave the euro. Again, no. People may say: ‘Ah, but if the Greek Government (when they get one) decides to reject the EU-backed austerity plan, and they do not get their next instalments of loans from the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to pay their debts then this will put them in a position of default on their loans. Will that force them to ditch the euro and take up the drachma?’ Well, no it won’t at all. Indeed it would be a very silly thing for them to do. Now a decision to default on their remaining debts (remember they have been effectively allowed to default on the majority of their debts already) will have serious consequences – Greek banks will face bankruptcy for a start, but leaving the euro will not stop that happening. Indeed it will make things worse for two reasons. First the Greeks would exchange use of a solid currency (the euro) for one of highly uncertain (and probably rapidly depreciating) value. Second, the rest of the eurozone would be severely challenged as banks stop lending to each other for fear that euros used in Portugal might suddenly change into escudos, into liras in Italy etc, and that would not help Greece either, along with the whole of the EU, in or out of the eurozone – points which, amongst others, have been raised by Bank of England adviser Robert Jenkins writing in the Financial Times on November 7th last year. People say that a cheap Greece would be a magnet for holidaymakers. However, after a eurozone crash there might not be many holidaymakers left. This logic is part of the reason why the large majority of Greeks themselves do not wish to leave the euro.

So if Greece exiting the eurozone is less likely than Wolverhampton Wanderers winning the Premier League in two years time, why do people go on about it so much? Well, it is about public relations. You should remember that what politicians, bankers etc say is not necessarily actually likely to happen, but is aimed at affecting other people’s behaviour, in this case the Greeks. People who have lent Greeks the money, or think they have (Germany via the ECB, bankers etc) would prefer to get it back and they want to frighten the Greeks into towing the line, and keep up the terms of the austerity package to make further heavy cuts in public spending. So they make empty threats. The Syriza Party say these threats are bluffs. On this point Syriza is correct. By the way Syriza and the Democratic Left Party are, well, left, parties, not fascists as implied in much of the press. We would do well to pay them more respect before we start to encourage the real fascists in Greece.

One reason why so many Greeks are now voting for anti-austerity parties is that they are being made aware that the money they are being given by the ECB and IMF is mainly to repay loans….lent by the ECB and the IMF. If the Greeks decided to renege on their debts then their budget would actually be yielding a small surplus this year – so they would not need much, if any, of the loans anyway.

There is of course the not insignificant matter of the Greek banks. Syriza reckons it can solve this problem by nationalising them. Well, I suppose we nationalised Northern Rock…..Now I’m not going to debate the details of what the Greeks (or indeed the ECB) would do in this situation. But I do make a plea that the ECB, Germany, etc start thinking seriously about a Plan B that does not involve making empty threats against the Greeks to impel them to suffer even more pain than they have got already. Rather we need a plan that instead involves negotiating with the Greeks to reduce their debts further and to allow them the chance of rebuilding their economy without the painful regime that has been imposed upon them. Plan A clearly is not going to work.

Posts provide the views of their authors only. They do not represent the position of the POLSIS Blog, the Department of Political Science and International Studies, or the University of Birmingham.