Another day, another set of misleading claims from the prime minister’s press operation. The cabinet secretary needs to act, says Jill Rutter
It is rare – maybe unprecedented – for a senior former mandarin to take
to the airwaves to insert himself into a live political row. That is
what Lord McDonald, former head of the Foreign Office, did with his open
letter to the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards, explaining what
really happened about complaints regarding Christopher Pincher’s
behaviour while he was a minister. McDonald said he felt impelled to
intervene because the No.10 press office had fed out a line that the
prime minister was unaware of substantiated allegations against Mr
Pincher.
Lord McDonald knew that was untrue. The prime minister should have
known it was untrue – as Lord McDonald points out – and should have been
able to remember an accusation so serious. Boris Johnson’s immediate
entourage may or may not have known it was untrue and had relied on the
prime minister’s assurances. But someone in No.10 allowed the press
office to lie to the press.
Press officers are paid to put a positive spin on government policy and
to defend the government when its record comes under attack. So the
press office will have a set of defensive lines to take. And it will
have ways of presenting the government’s achievements which make the
government look as good as is possible – within boundaries.
The most important of those boundaries is that a taxpayer funded press
office must not lie to or deliberately mislead journalists (save perhaps
if there is a pressing national security situation). That duty is in
the civil service code. It is in the guidance to government
communications officers.
In this case the No.10 press office might have been a victim of others’
lies in No.10. But that was clearly not true in the case of the
partygate allegations. There the press office was at the heart of the
party culture in No.10 exposed in Sue Gray’s report. But despite knowing
that it was impossible to dress up what had been going on as “work
events” – the defence which cost Allegra Stratton her job – they went on
covering up. It was only after the fines were issued and the full Gray
report was published that the official spokesman stopped lying and put
an apology for doing so on the public record.
Amazingly that apology was not followed by the spokesman’s resignation
or dismissal. It should have been. The prime minister’s official
spokesman cannot double as a liar. Both the press and the public need to
know that they can trust what is being said in the name of the prime
minister and the government. And that action should not have rested with
the prime minister – it should have been the cabinet secretary who made
clear that the lies had besmirched the civil service’s reputation and
demanded their departure.
Instead, at the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs select
committee last week, the cabinet secretary seemed to suggest that this
was not the case. He said: “It is not automatically a breach of the
Civil Service Code. There is a professional point here. I think that the
reason why he apologised, although it is not an easy relationship
between the press officers and the media, is that it is important that
there is a degree of trust, which is why he apologised.” This was a
remarkably contorted justification for clearly inappropriate behaviour.
Honesty is not just the best policy – it is the policy. And lying
clearly breaches it. Case’s equivocation suggests the only problem with
lying and the only reason for apologising was that this had compromised
the relationships between press officers and the media. It may be that
in the Pincher case, the integrity of the No.10 press office and of
civil service press officers more broadly is just another piece of
collateral damage from the prime minister’s behaviour. But that
integrity was already in question after partygate.
Taxpayers do not pay for civil servants to lie to us via the media. The
prime minister may not accept that. But the cabinet secretary should
make clear that he does
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