THE MASOCHISM OF JACK STRAW
The Curious Case of The Boneless Man
Jack Straw, a member of
the Labour Party and former activist, held two key offices of state in Britain. He was Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary; whilst holding both these posts he
laboured, no pun intended, under a terrible burden, for he suffers from a variant of the Stockholm syndrome. However
Straw’s condition is more severe, involving as it does the literal worship and
veneration of those who have persecuted him. This condition has finally reduced
him to a state akin to the boneless wonder; he is now little more than a blob of
jelly.
When he first became Home
Secretary he was asked if he had requested to see his, or any of his colleagues
MI5 file. His reply was one of shock, his very virtue was being called into
question. Certainly not he replied, that would be wholly improper. He
completely trusted the security establishment. (Spy-catcher, and the activities
of Mr Wright seem wholly to have passed him by).
For Mr Straw, and never
was a man more aptly named, had long since fallen under the spell of those who
despised him, kissing the polished leather of the boot that kicked him. This
love affair began early.
‘In his autobiography, Last Man Standing, he tells how he
and his family came under intense surveillance, which he first learned about
when he was vetted to be Barbara Castle’s adviser at the DHSS in 1974.
A man “with a skin disease” from the MoD interviewed him
for six hours suggesting that he was gay – Straw says the spooks were
“obsessed” with homosexuals at the time. He was called back for a third
interview with MI5, who had a two-inch thick file on him and his family.
Straw was questioned about his sister, Suzy, whom they
believed, on the evidence of a neighbour, to be a member of the Communist party.
The spook showed Straw a memo from someone who had been spying on his sister.
Straw told them it was a mistake. His sister had merely fancied a member of the
CP.
He was then questioned about leftwing contemporaries while
he had been President of the National Union of Students. He was confronted
with detailed evidence from someone who had spied on a lunch he and another
student had had in a pub years earlier – including a detailed account of their
conversations.
At the end of the meeting the spook asked Straw not to
tell Barbara Castle about their meeting. Straw readily agreed. “On the way back
to the DHSS I reflected on the fact that the Security Service had begun to put
together this file on my family when I was 15 – and on the scale of the
surveillance operation this implied.” ‘
Most people might have been troubled by this. Not Straw.
He writes that he was “neither surprised nor shocked … This was the world we
lived in.”[1]
Thus was the man who was
tasked with protecting our civil liberties. An imbecile who did not understand
the difference between appropriate security measures and unwarranted intrusion.
True to form in office he simply became the glove puppet of the security
establishment.
This distorted world view
had serious consequences for the victims of the Hillsborough disaster, whom he
failed by inadequately reviewing the paperwork and by simply accepting the establishment
account of events; or when he had the chance to hold General Pinochet to
account. Faced with the hostility of the security services he crumbled like a
rich tea biscuit dunked in a hot mug of tea.
When Blair began to fear
that the Freedom of Information legislation, then being steered through parliament, might be becoming too radical he knew who to send for, - the establishment ass
licker Straw was called in to try and knobble the legislation.
‘The
White Paper began life in the Cabinet Office but in July 1998 following a
reshuffle the brief passed to the Home Office. Following this transfer the
planned legislation found itself in a less benign environment. Its passage
through Parliament saw additional exemption clauses inserted to provide
reassurance to senior Civil Servants and some ministers concerned that the Act
would allow the citizen to pry on the inner processes of government. As the
balance of the Act swung from the right to know to the duty to withhold in the
national interest…’[2]
Though his attempts to
castrate the act were not wholly successful, so as recently as 2012 Straw has
called for further reductions in the right to know.[3]
The Blair years saw a sustained assault on civil liberties, with Jack Straw
cheering every move.
Sometime after 2000, when I said I was thinking of not voting Labour, a shocked comrade asked me why? I said simply
“Jack Straw.”
Now, in the light of
Edward Snowden’s revelations about mass surveillance there are desperate attempts
on the part of the security establishment to discredit Snowden and The
Guardian Newspaper. Up pops an indignant Straw, his masters have been impugned
and he rushes to their defence.
‘I
think that the head of the security service, MI5, has been absolutely right to
say what he has said, and I regret what I can only describe as indulgent,
irresponsibility by the Guardian newspaper. You can always justify everything,
if you’re a newspaper, on the grounds that this is open journalism, but this is
about much more than journalism, it’s genuinely about how we protect the
national interest. And that’s not just about protecting the ‘establishment’,
it’s about keeping people safe, it’s about avoiding another 7th of July 2005.’[4]
If the head of MI5 says that lives have been put at
risk by Snowden, Straw swallows it hook, line and sinker, not a sceptical thought in his head.
If you want one short passage that summons up the
really seedy nature of Straws masochism you could do no better than witness his
relationship to the vile Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, publisher of
black propaganda against the Labour Party, to whom Straw sold the serialization of his memoirs. Thus Straw states:-
‘If I had that many
qualms, I would have tried to block the sale. So the answer is 'no'. I realise
this is a crime before the people's court, but I've got a lot of respect for
Paul Dacre. I've known him for over 40 years [he and the Mail's editor were
contemporaries at Leeds ]. I've found him straight and he's a good
journalist.’
The Labour party has always thrown up politicians
like Straw, who fall in love with the illusion of power and the idea of
becoming part of the establishment. Masochism of the Straw variety is however
rare and thankfully he is now approaching the twilight of his career. Perhaps
someone who lost their backbone so early in life should be the subject of pity;
I for one cannot summon up any.
[3] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2131349/Jack-Straw-calls-Freedom-Information-Act-rewrite-protect-Government-decision-makers.html
Tony Blair famously said that FOI was his greatest regret, what does that tell
you about the man.
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