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‘Miss your train’ offer
• CHRISTOPHER Price did not really deal adequately with the issue of mass surveillance, which is growing under New Labour (Why we must keep an eye on the rise of surveillance society, August 7). He is too modest to include his own role in the contradictions of what could have been a Freedom of Information Act.
For in 1979 Clement Freud, then Liberal MP, was pursuing a Private Members Bill which could only succeed with help from the minority Labour government. Under pressure from a Conservative censure motion the Callaghan government decided to back the bill in exchange for the support of Liberals when the Lib-Lab pact was breaking down. Christopher Price was delegated to track down Freud and he was found visiting a factory in his constituency. Price told Freud that, if he would “miss his train” for the crucial vote, he could have government support for this Private Members Bill.
Freud unwisely refused, and voted for the censure motion which brought down the Labour government and led to 18 years of Tory rule.
There was never a “Harold Wilson doctrine”. For Wilson himself was being bugged by undisciplined elements within the security services in league with BOSS, the South African Bureau of State Security.
Wilson also authorised the bugging and arrest of Will Owen, the veteran Labour MP for Morpeth, for alleged espionage. All he did was publicly dine with the Czech military attaché. Owen was cleared at trial.
At that time Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt were officers of Liberty, which was later chaired by Sadiq Khan. They all supported Freedom of Information legislation and opposed ID cards.
But once in office as Labour ministers, Harman, Hewitt and Mactaggart, who were all officers of Liberty, have presided over the most authoritarian assault on civil rights and freedoms since William Pitt.
Mr Khan should not complain too much about being bugged. As soon as he was elected MP he voted for ID cards. He later voted for 42-day detention and was denounced by Shami Chakrabarti, current director of Liberty.
LIBBY TABARD
E5
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