In a story today on the BBC website, Health Secretary Alan Johnson says the Prime Minister does not have to apologise for the emails sent by his advisor Damien McBride.
I strongly agree with this. There is a pernicious notion in England today that empty gestures are worthier than relevant action. How on earth could the Prime Minister be responsible for McBride’s actions? Now, if he had done something like this before, or if his actions had signposted the PM to the likelihood he’d do this then fair enough – you could say that is bad judgement on the part of McBride’s ‘line manager’ so to say. But for heaven’s sake – you cannot control what another person does!
As a British taxpayer I would gain no solace from the PM apologising for this tawdry incident. And what to do from here? Well the party in question has resigned and as far as I can see that’s the end of it. The most that can be done is to tell relevant staff not do indulge in such stupid activities – but to be honest, if they don’t already know this they are in a sorry state indeed.
On another related note, when are people going to wake up to the fact that emails and much correspondence sent over the net is not private? For goodness sake people, remember that and if you have something private to discuss do it in person. In terms of the nature of the emails in the McBride situation – that is a symptom of our culture which is sadly geared towards Z-list celebrity worship and gossip. It’s a pity that someone engaged in what I consider to be the serious business of government is interested in that world too. As I’ve often said – if England doesn’t wake up to the fact that our culture as it now exists is destroying us as a nation we will be - well destroyed won’t we?
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