In my blawg radio silence earlier this week I received a couple of reader requests to deal with vital topics of the day. The first, from an estimable legal lady whose handbag bulges with law reports and Heat magazine, and who wants to know my view of the recent heart-melting ménage à trois involving the fresh-faced culture minister, the political Don Quixote of East Yorkshire and my former government legal colleague turned director of Liberty. You’ll remember that Andy Burnham suggested in an interview that David Davis was
having late night, handwringing, heart-melting phone calls with Shami Chakrabarti.
Chakrabarti threatened to sue, Burnham apologised after a fashion, and all involved have now “moved on”.
Well, my thoughts are these. First, it seems that Burnham’s comments came against the background of Westminster whispers about an affair between Davis and Chakrabarti: he must have been aware of the nudge-nudge implication of what he was saying. Second, I suspected from the start that the rumours were not just idle gossip, but had been circulated deliberately by Labour whips to discredit the anti-42 days campaign, and Diane Abbot on This Week (you can watch the programme for another six days: what she says comes after 2 mins. 45) was of the same view, saying that
elements in the government decided to spread the rumour…
She has a little bit more to say, too, about what Andy Burnham ‘s alleged to have been saying at a press party.
So I think this story shows how desperate Labour whips really were over 42 days, and are over the government’s position generally. Some people have accused Chakrabarti of overreacting, and I think if we were talking about normal life, that’d be a fair point; but I don’t blame her for what I’d call a tactical overreaction: making a big fuss and embarrassing ministers over this meant she and David Davis are probably politically stronger now, as a result of the affair (don’t sue, Shami! I don’t mean it!) and the government weaker.
I’m tempted to make some joke about detumescent ministers, but perhaps I’d better leave it.
A lot of folks in the blogosphere were asking whether or not Davis’s ‘phone is/was bugged and the details of the conversation passed on to the gov.
Any comments?
Well, I’d be amazed: if you were someone able to do the bugging, would you think it was proper to do it? I doubt ministers could really persuade security staff to do this, unless the whole security system is much more corrupt than I, perhaps naively, imagine.