Firebrand Short blasts No 10
Firebrand Clare Short, former international development and MP for Birmingham Ladywood, has accused No 10, the MoD and select committee heads of an “abuse of power” in their dealings with the BBC, which made suicide Dr David Kelly’s life a living “hell.”
Writing in the Independent on Sunday, Mrs Short said: “We have a Prime Minister so focused on presentation that there is inadequate consideration of the merits of policy. Beneath the smiling demeanour is a ruthlessness that is accompanied by a lack of respect for proper procedure, and a willingness to be economical with the actuality.”
Mrs Short said one thing thrown up by the Hutton inquiry was No 10’s dangerous love affair with spin, a “disease that has corroded the integrity of the Blair government. “
She said Andrew Andrew Gilligan’s Today programme report on May 29 was “fundamentally true” in that Downing Street had “sexed up” the September intelligence dossier on Iraq’s capacity to launch lethal weapons.
Downing Street’s attack on the BBC was tantamount to an “abuse of power.”
In a direct swipe at Tony Blair, she questioned the “massive” centralisation of power at No 10: “Beneath the smiling demeanour, a ruthlessness that is accompanied by a lack of respect for proper procedure, and a willingness to be economical with the actuality.”
She ended her article by saying the Dr Kelly affair was a “sorry tale” that “shames my party, Government and country.”
