ANYBODY HERE SEEN KELLY?

I make no bones about the fact that, when Ruth Kelly’s imminent departure from the cabinet was disclosed on Wednesday, my response could be encompassed in two words: “good riddance”. Kelly has been precious little asset. Her political touch and administrative competence have been much questioned. She is one of those ‘modern’ politicos – David Miliband is apt to be another – who seems to believe that to speak of “going forward” is to make a major policy statement. Most deplorably of all, her membership of the lunatic fringe group Opus Dei aligns her with fundamentalist supernatural views that are in direct conflict with much of the Labour government’s social programme. This was a grave embarrassment when fellow Roman Catholic sympathiser Tony Blair created for her the very Blairite post of Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. It was a job she held for 14 months before Gordon Brown gave her the transport portfolio.

It was quickly clear that, in purporting to represent “communities”, Kelly could not square her brief with her own views about the gay community. As Peter Tatchell remarked on her appointment, “Tony Blair would never appoint someone to a race equality post who had a lukewarm record of opposing racism”. Before her transfer from the Education brief that she had handled so poorly, Kelly had absented herself from twelve of the fourteen votes on issues concerning gay rights and had voted against adoption by same-sex couples. Happily the geriatric falangista and others of Kelly’s Opus Dei cohorts seem not to have a policy on transport.

All that being said, I have been outraged by the media coverage of Kelly’s political demise. She could hardly have been more categorical in her explanation of her departure. As she told reporters in successive sentences, it was “purely a decision taken for family reasons … absolutely and completely for family reasons”. It seems to me that the appropriate reaction for the media is to accept that as a categorical statement. Anything else and you should stop beating about the bush and call her a liar outright.

The BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg, reporting from the steps of the Manchester conference centre where the Labour party was gathered, asked rhetorically, “Could her action spur cabinet ministers into thinking about their jobs?” Well, Laura, of course it could because Gordon will have to appoint a new Secretary of State for Transport and is anyway widely claimed to be planning a reshuffle sooner rather than later. But if you mean “might they think about resigning for family reasons?” well, I suppose it depends on how young their respective children are.

Here is what the BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, wrote in his blog on Wednesday: “The fact is, though, that Ruth Kelly has been profoundly worried about the direction of her party and has spoken with other cabinet ministers who were contemplating resigning too, to make their point. What this illustrates is that there is a big gap between talk behind the scenes and action”.

This is a “fact”, is it? Has Kelly aired her “profound” worry to Robinson personally or is this just a rumour in Westminster? And I take it that the ambiguity of the word “direction” is carefully chosen. It could mean the thrust of policy or it could mean the management of the party. Robinson leaves it for us to interpret. There are certainly areas of policy where there are differences of opinion in the government, as too within the opposition parties and across the country: ID cards, detention of terrorists, the future of troop deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan, the imposition of a windfall tax on power companies. But generally, as I observed in the previous entry, the cabinet seems as ideologically like-minded as any I can recall over the last half-century. So what “point” would some of its members be making by resigning?

Who are the other cabinet ministers who were contemplating resignation? What are they waiting for? What is their game plan? I find all this sort of political gossip profoundly – if I may use Robinson’s weighty word – unsatisfactory. In his journalism, Robinson is very keen on hints and glosses. He is given to formulae such as “cabinet ministers say privately …”. What does that mean?

It seems to me that there are several possible readings of such a claim. If “privately” is taken literally, Robinson must mean that at least one minister is an old friend of his with whom he chats frequently as old friends do. In such circumstances, the minister(s) would surely expect confidences to be respected. Robinson is a disloyal friend to whom “privacy” means nothing.

More likely, Robinson means that he has had informal contact with ministers in the professional context of journalist and politicians – the opposite of private – and that he has been given information either off the record or on the record but on an unattributable basis. In the former instance, Robinson could still be considered to be betraying a confidence. Off the record is generally taken to mean that the information is not for conveying baldly to the public but to be understood as background to the journalist’s understanding of a wider picture.

Anonymously quotable information is a different ballgame altogether. It raises a number of important supplementary questions: what is the politician’s motive in putting this information into the public domain? how reliable is the information? is the journalist being used as a means to make mischief for somebody else? is it proper that, in this case, the BBC should be unwittingly inveigled into machinations that might be mere politicking rather than politics?

What is more, it raises important questions about the reporter’s own probity. Why is the reporter acceding to the politician’s gambit in throwing a stone into the pool? How sure can the reporter be that the information given is kosher and not some species of black propaganda? And, given that the story is run anonymously, what is to stop the reporter inventing a rumour supposedly given to him by a cabinet minister and creating a story of his own from nothing? You will say “his professionalism” will prevent that. But all reporters have agendas too. There is no reason why Labour should trust Nick Robinson, a former president of the Oxford University Conservative Association and a former national chairman of the Young Conservatives.

Robinson does not reveal his political history in his blog biog. Journalists – especially those in broadcasting who are expected to be more disinterested than their print equivalents – dread the exposure of such past activism. I vividly recall a BBC Election Night special in the 1960s wherein the anchor, Cliff Michelmore, handed over to Robin Day who was perched in the roof of the studio interviewing a succession of politicos. Michelmore lightly noted that Day had once stood as a Liberal candidate. Day leaned precariously over the barrier of his eyrie and, incandescent with rage, bawled “I asked for that not to be mentioned”. Thereafter both he and Michelmore comported themselves as if nothing untoward had occurred. But clearly Sir Robin (as he became) feared that such history might compromise his stance as an impartial tribune.

On The World at One, Nick Robinson gladly accepted Martha Kearney’s invitation to speculate on the details of the reshuffle that reporters – on no formal basis – presume to expect next week. What an idle exercise. If the speculation happens to be mostly accurate, Robinson will bask in imagined brilliance while the viewers yawn. If it is wide of the mark, he will present the reshuffle as a missed opportunity or “Gordon seeking to spring a surprise”. If there is no reshuffle, the predictions will be quietly forgotten. But all of it is a waste of valuable airtime.

The Guardian ran a good deal of “background” on the Kelly resignation, much of it contradictory – “one source said a junior number 10 official may have been indiscreet in the bars of the Labour conference” (the plural “bars” suggests drunk and indiscreet); “allies of the prime minister … [said] that the ‘toxic timing’ of the resignation was designed by Blairites to give the impression of ‘dirty tricks’ by no 10”; and so on.

Of course, when politicians gossip unguardedly to journalists, they only have themselves to blame if rabbits run and end up eating the crops that the gossips had meant to protect. I recently read John Hutton, James Purnell and Caroline Flint named among those who were plotting against Gordon Brown. Such reports reflect badly on the named from any point of view. If they are known plotters, the plotting is not subtle. If the claim is false, they should issue a statement refuting it – they should probably do that whether it is true or false. If they are briefing journalists unattributably, it will serve them right if the upshot is not part of the plan.

Were I Gordon Brown, I should revert to the tried and tested gambit of divide and rule. Sack Hutton: there are no votes in him. Hope he makes common cause on the back benches with Charles Clarke because the pair can easily be nullified by being characterised as Laurel and Hardy. Move Purnell sideways. His presence in the cabinet at all is a mystery to me. He shares with the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg the pasty look of someone who spends too long in front of his computer. I wouldn’t trust him with a boiled sweet. Send him to Northern Ireland. Evidently (and bewilderingly) Brown admires and wants to promote the current Northern Ireland Secretary, the millionaire Tory turncoat Shaun Woodward. The pair could swap jobs. Promote Flint to the cabinet. She already attends it often as Minister of State for Housing and Planning. She has form in education and health and she combined American literature and film studies as a student. It’s too soon to shift Andy Burnham from Culture but she could have the portfolio of John Denham – Innovation, Universities and Skills – and the admirable Denham could take the Transport brief. What’s she gonna do? Say “no thanks, I’d rather disappear into obscurity on the back benches”? In the end, most of these politicians are realists.