Arrogant PM’s call lacked intelligence
ILIKE and admire Chris Grayling who has been dealt some pretty awful hands and been blamed for the cards, but there can be not the smallest of small doubts that Julian Lewis was vastly better qualified to be chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee and should from the start have been the Government’s preferred choice. It is hardly surprising that Grayling, who was standing for that prestigious and sensitive position, lost out to Mr Lewis but so dictatorial has No.10 become that the prime minister responded by pettily withdrawing the Conservative whip on the thin basis that Mr Lewis had “colluded” with the opposition in soliciting their votes.
Let us look at Mr Lewis’s credentials. For four years he was Chairman of the Defence Select Committee. He has spoken on defence and security issues throughout his time in Parliament and before that was active in campaigning against nuclear disarmament.As long ago as 1987, he gave me valuable input for my maiden speech on the subject of Trident. Before that he was awarded a doctorate from Oxford University in Strategic Studies.
In short, Julian Lewis’s life has been devoted to defence and security matters, he speaks with both academic and practical authority and is more qualified than Grayling by a country mile.
WHAT really matters here is the government’s reaction. The chairmanship of committees of the House of Commons is for the determination of those committees, which are supposed to act independently. Indeed, the government itself had plainly stated that this election also was a matter for the committee. Until, that is, its placeman lost.
Quite inevitably, if Mr Lewis wished to win then he was going to canvass votes, including opposition votes. The Government calls that treachery but calmer mortals call it electioneering.
We now have a government grown so arrogant with the absolute power that dealing with a national emergency has given it, that if it is thwarted by anybody about anything it acts like a totalitarian dictatorship. Behind all the bumble and blather, Boris has a dangerously swollen head.