Blair bans inquiry into ministers

Evidently Blair has something to hide folks. Why else would he be doing this? :grr:

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,995154,00.html

The parliamentary ombudsman was last night pitched on to a collision course with Downing Street after the government banned her from investigating any ministerial conflict of interest.

Ann Abraham warned she would no longer be able to fulfil her role as a key figure in the drive against secrecy and sleaze within Whitehall and threatened to resign because of the "difficulties" placed in her way. Her warning provokes a crisis for the government's commitment to freedom of information.

It followed an unprecedented ban issued by Charles Falconer, the lord chancellor and constitutional affairs secretary, preventing her from probing whether the prime minister and cabinet ministers have had conflicts between their private interests and public duties.

Lord Falconer and Douglas Alexander, the minister of state at the Cabinet Office, signed a certificate saying any disclosure of information about such conflicts would be "prejudicial to the safety of the state or otherwise contrary to the public interest".

(snip)

...any disclosure of information about such conflicts would be "prejudicial to the safety of the state or otherwise contrary to the public interest".

What he should have said is that conflicts of interest between their private affairs and public duties would be prejudicial to the safety of the state or otherwise contrary to the public interest.

Might force Lord Falconer to be open about his dealings! :eyes: (Lord Falconer BTW, used to be Blair's flatmate and is very much considered "crony-in cheif" in this government.)

As long as "new" labour obstructs stuff like this we will have more than ample justification to suspect foul play from the government.

that said allowing the vote recount in Florida would cause irreparable harm to Dubya? Of course it would...

born again Mussolini, Berlusconi.

rules. Until recently it was legal to bribe an MoP in the UK. Clearly, Blair is worried that the things people have done which are legal will look bad. However, that's no excuse for this stupid order. (Oh, and in the current anti-Blair climate, I suspect that the release of this information will be bad for his government and expedite the shift back to a Tory government which will be even more compromised, and will probably reverse the reform that has been planned -- but I'd still rather have Blair take Irvine's advice and release the information and then engage in a public debate on whatever it reveals.)

From the article:

Many ministers have personal, family or business connections of which the
public is unaware. Some are already prevented from serving in particular
departments because of connections with such activities as the arms trade.

This year the committee on standards in public life called for the safeguards
system over ministers' private interests to be reformed. Nothing has been
done about this yet.