Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Ian Blair - do you actually blame him?

The consensus is that recording conversations is wrong (rung a call centre recently?), that he should have told the Attorney General (possibly, but, well, Lord Goldsmith?). Me? I don't know which side is worse. Bookdrunk?:
The second most likely reason is that while Blair might have been willing to publicly take the blame for decisions made under his watch, he wasn't prepared to be fired for having acted on the 'best' legal advice available at that time ( i.e. something emanating not a million miles from the Attorney General's office).
We're talking Tony Blair's Attorney General. You remember, right? The guy who wrote that opinion on the Iraq war legality after some conversations with Bush's team?

You're Ian Blair. Some of your men have just shot someone, you suspect that person was innocent of what he's accused of having been shot for. The Governments chief lawyer is on the phone, you don't have someone available to take notes. Wouldn't you want a record of the conversation and any 'advice' you were given?
It's not illegal to tape a telephone conversation - only to reveal the contents of the conversation to a third party without prior permission of those you have recorded.
Unless I've missed it, there's no allegation that the content of the conversation has been leaked, just that it exists.

I think Blair (both of them) should go. But Ian Blair shouldn't go for this one. I think he was just covering his back. Given Goldsmith's track record, do you actually blame him for that?

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh I'm glad somebody else thinks the same as me. Given this Govt's track record I wouldn't trust 'em the distance I could throw John Prescott.

It's quite obvious Ian Blair doesn't either and was just preparing his defence for when they stick the knife in.