Q428
Grant Shapps: Foreign
Secretary, we were actually privileged to have Sir Christopher Meyer in here
as part of his world book promotion tour for DC Confidential and, to
be honest, I did not really particularly take to him, a slippery sort of
character, hard to pin down, and very difficult to lay a glove on, as the
media pointed out afterwards. I can understand why he really gets up your
nose actually, but can you actually name one element, something he wrote,
which is actually damaging?
Mr Straw:
His book was not stopped, and if it had
been directly damaging to the public interest we would have sought to stop
it. I read your evidence, Mr Shapps. I thought the press were very unfair,
actually. I thought you had laid a glove on him, but there we are.
Grant Shapps:
You will not get round me that way!
Mr Straw:
But it was because he did not appear to
have breached the key criteria for legal action that we did not stand in the
way of its publication, but neither did we approve of it, and that needs to
be made clear. It was a breach of trust, no question about it. As I have
said, as a result of the publication, I think he has suffered reputationally
far more than if we had pursued a legal action, whether he won or lost in
his particular case.
Q429
Grant Shapps: He may
have suffered reputationally but probably not financially, I should imagine,
in this particular case, but could you name me one element which was
actually damaging, or are you conceding there are none?
Mr Straw:
What I concede – and I have not got the
book in front of me – is that there was no case for seeking legal action or
to prevent him from publishing it, which there could have been and have been
sometimes in respect of other publications. Nonetheless – and this is the
point about this – the law is a very restrictive facility in these
circumstances. The fact that there was not a basis for taking legal action
against him does not mean that we approved it. We did it because it was
plainly and very significantly a breach of confidence.
Q430
Grant Shapps: So really
actually what you have experienced is what we have all experienced, that he
is the sort of guy who gets under your skin? He is annoying? You do not
approve of his book, but actually there is nothing that he did that was
wrong?
Mr Straw:
No. Let me say that when I was dealing
with him day by day, from time to time, when he was Ambassador in Washington
I rubbed along with him because I actually think (to come back to my point
about the permanent civil service) that that is what you have as a duty as a
minister. You take the collective civil service as is and get on with it.
I have got no particular views on that.
Q431
Grant Shapps: So the
problem is actually, as you have described it, that really he has just been
unprofessional? That is the complaint, that he has been unprofessional,
but he did not do anything illegal?
Mr Straw:
Plainly, he did not do anything which
caused us to take him to court, and I have answered that, but he had been
unprofessional. He had broken the trust which was fundamental to him
getting the job and keeping the job.
Q432
Grant Shapps: Did you,
whilst you were working with him, suspect that he might be the kind of cad
that he has turned out to be?
Mr Straw:
No. If I had thought that he was going to
write a book of this kind, then I would have said to him, “I don’t think you
can carry on doing your job.”
Q433
Grant Shapps: So whilst
as an Ambassador he may have thrown exceedingly good parties, you would not
have thought there was any reason not to stay at his residence, for example?
Mr Straw:
No, I always stayed at his residence. Let
me also say that I asked him to stay on because he was due to leave, and did
leave, at the end of February 2003. That meant there was going to be a six
or seven month hiatus between him leaving office and David Manning taking
over, because it was important that David Manning should stay as the Prime
Minister’s diplomatic adviser for that period of six months or so leading up
to the summer. I asked him if he would carry on, but in the end he refused
to do so, for reasons which he has sought to explain to the Committee, and I
respected his decision.
Q434
Grant Shapps: So would
you now go and stay at the residence of the Ambassador, knowing what could
happen?
Mr Straw:
I do stay at residences, is the answer. I
know this was an issue raised by Andrew Turnbull. I do stay at residences.
I have got direct responsibility for Ambassadors and it would be absurd if
the Foreign Secretary chose to stay in hotels rather than using the
opportunity to stay in the residences –
Q435
Grant Shapps: It is
good to hear this experience has not put you off!
Mr Straw:
No, no, and going back to Mr Hopkins’s
point, what the Meyer book has done, I think, has been to re-enliven these
conventions in the minds of officials. I think there will be very, very few
members of the Diplomatic Service doing a Meyer in the foreseeable future.
Q436
Grant Shapps: I see, so
actually in your mind not only has he damaged his own reputation by
disgracing himself and therefore it has been extremely detrimental to him,
but it has also done the job of reminding all the other civil servants that
they cannot do the same thing? So this is rather a satisfactory outcome?
Mr Straw:
I think he has reminded them. These
conventions have enforcement behind them, but they cannot work unless people
voluntarily sign up to them and follow them. It has just made the service
as a whole very angry, and this again was a point brought out by Andrew
Turnbull, that if you end up in a situation where trust breaks down
significantly between ministers and officials then you will have to move
towards the kind of system which you have in the United States, which I
happen to regard as satisfactory.
Q437
Grant Shapps: I am
pleased you mention this, because this is what I want to come on to. Could
I just cover this last point. We have talked about Paul Brenner’s book
which Gordon brought up and you mentioned the idea of the American system
which means that civil servants are actually political appointees. In fact
on another investigation we had your brother in here, I think pedalling the
same line. Is this something you would favour, perhaps?
Mr Straw:
My brother is my brother and he must be
responsible for his own views. Personally, I am signed up broadly to the
current arrangements because I happen to think they work and I think that if
you go down the path of the American system or, say, the French system you
end up with more problems than you solve.
.
