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…nobody. Although I was fortunate enough to have my question put to the Prime Minister in his recent webcast, it just became part of the expected unedifying spectacle. I imagine everybody involved had far more important things to do and I’ll generously include the Prime Minister in that. You can read the transcript, watch the video or download the MP3 here.

The piece of cake that is having your question addressed to the Prime Minister himself looks fabulous. A huge slab of light, golden sponge, stuffed with fresh cream and jam, and a thick layer of succulent marzipan on the top. Needless to say, in his refusal to answer my question to any satisfactory degree, the Prime Minister denied me the pleasure of eating said delight. Ah, the giddy whirl of speaking truth to power. To finally get a sniff of how soul-destroyingly frustrating and pointless life as a lobby journalist must actually be, is a real privilege.

If you’ll indulge me, here was the question I sent to Michael White and Sarah Sands:

Dear Prime Minister,

There have been several allegations of sexual harrassment made against the Deputy Prime Minister, notably from Linda McDougall, the wife of MP Austin Mitchell who alleges, in 1978, that he “pushed me quite forcefully against the wall and put his hand up my skirt”.

Were these allegations to be made against a teacher, social worker, a doctor or anyone else, do you think they should be treated as “a private matter”, as you regard the Deputy Prime Minister’s conduct, or do you think that person should face disciplinary proceedings?

Kinds regards

Justin McKeating

As was stated from the outset by Number 10, “[t]he questions chosen to go to the PM will not be selected by his office”. To test this assertion, and on the suggestion of a commenter, I emailed Sarah Sands, not to ask her to put my question to the Prime Minister, but merely for confirmation that she’s laid eyes on my question and that it hadn’t been weeded out by the myrmidons overseeing the questions@pmo.gov.uk inbox. She emailed back to say she had seen the question and had shortlisted it.

Tim Ireland and I also wondered if we could detect the scent of rat when he, and then I, received visitors to our blogs from someone in the Prime Minister’s office yesterday morning. I had a brief, paranoid and self-important vision of a herd of Number 10 lackeys preparing lines to take on any given subject that might arise during the Prime Minister’s interrogation.

In the event, I needn’t have worried. Judging by the Prime Minister’s answer to my question and the contradictions that accumulated over the course of the question and answer session, the whole exercise was just about as authentic as it’s possible for these things to be.

In answer to my question, Blair said:

I think the simple answer, Sarah, is if someone has done something wrong they should face disciplinary proceedings. But I am not going to accuse someone of doing something wrong on the basis of, well I don’t know actually, I haven’t heard about this thing, but presumably a report in the paper. And I think, how can I put this, I think the problem that we have is that of course politicians should be accountable for their behaviour, and actually if you look back over the years politicians are regularly held to account. But I think the most important thing is that if we do something wrong, fair enough, but I think like everybody else we shouldn’t be assumed to have done certain things just because people make allegations about us. And I try to, when allegations are made of particular behaviour, I try and investigate it and there are Ministers that have left government as a result of doing things that are either wrong or contrary to the interests of the government. But I think sometimes you can get into a situation where you are expected just to follow every single story that is written about someone, and my experience is that when something happens and someone does something wrong, there may be truth in the original allegation, but then virtually anything can be then added in the mix to say that they have done half a dozen other things that when you actually investigate them turn out not quite to be right.

For someone acclaimed as one of the finest politicians of his generation, he really doesn’t come across as good at thinking on his feet, without a briefing or autocue. His answer is just yet another demonstration of how divorced from reality the poor sod is. (It’s also eerily similar to the excuses he’s made over extraordinary rendition – the line to take is one of ignorance and then a refusal to order inquiries based on perceived tittle tattle.) This is what you get when the Prime Minister is the final arbiter of ministerial conduct: there’s no separation of church and state. It’s the Catholic Church hierarchy hushing up priests’ abuse of children. It’s the football manager claiming he didn’t see the crunching foul that got his winger booked. Where’s the Prime Minister’s interest in investigating allegations made against his own cabinet ministers by (nice, disparaging, touch this) “presumably a report in the paper”?

I try and investigate it and there are Ministers that have left government as a result of doing things that are either wrong or contrary to the interests of the government.

Is he saying here that Precott has done nothing wrong or anything “contrary to the interests of the government”? How would he know if he’d only just heard this particular allegation and shows no sign of pursuing it? If “there may be truth in the original allegation” why not apply sanction on the basis of that truth once it’s uncovered? You have to hope the police don’t back away from allegations in their investigations just because allegations made in previous cases turned “out not quite to be right”? Here’s an idea. Why not carpet Prescott and ask him if he assaulted, groped, pinched the arse of, or however you want to paint it, of Linda McDougall in 1978? And then move down the list from there.

I know I harp on about it, maybe I just have an over-inflated sensitivity to sexual violence and harrassment towards women, but this kind of behaviour is not tolerated anywhere else in our society. It’s like Prescott punching people who throw things at him. Oh, how we laughed (and continue to laugh) at the be-mulleted fool the Deputy Prime Minister pluckily took at swing at. “John is John,” grinned the Prime Minister at the time. I wonder if he’d be so kind as to say “Justin is Justin” on TV if I were to sock one of the idiots chucking popcorn about the next time I go to the pictures. Do you think he’d prevaricate and obfuscate for me if I were to go next door and put my hand up my neighbour’s skirt?

Chivalry and feminism are dead, at least inside New Labour. Maybe I’m old fashioned, maybe it’s what comes from having daughters or being mindful of the memory-scorching stories my partner would bring home when she worked in women’s refuges, but I thought there might have been a little more anger over this. If I was Austin Mitchell I’d be planning an ostentatious political shanking not going on Newsnight to defend the man who’d assaulted my wife (I notice there’s been no denial, writ or complaint to the Press Complaints Commission forthcoming from Prescott over the allegations). It’s clear I’ve failed to understand just how things work at the top of the tree in this country. Which probably explains why I’m running an obscure blog from my bedroom and not shagging, groping and pushing women quite forcefully against the wall in the corridors of power.

But that’s not the end of it. How about this:

I am quite sure, based on the experience I have had in government, you cannot solve some of these law and order problems unless you are prepared, quite profoundly, to change and rebalance the system of criminal justice so that you have more summary justice, more summary powers, more ability for quick and effective action to be taken, even if it will cross the line that most people normally think of as there in terms of civil liberties. And my view is that you can decide that you are not going to do it for civil liberty reasons, decide it, but then don’t say to the politicians and all the rest of it, you have got to deal with this problem, because you cannot deal with it in my view by the normal processes of the law, you just can’t do it. The way the world has changed means that the only, and this is why we only started to get any action on antisocial behaviour when we introduced the power to get Antisocial Behaviour Orders, summary powers for the police, and the ability to take swift action.

Examine that and some lone, insatiable sexual predator stalking the corridors of Whitehall suddenly becomes utterly trivial and yet totemic of the dark moral vacuum at the heart of this Government. In the Home Office’s “A Guide to Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and Acceptable Behaviour Contracts” it states that:

Section 1(1) of the [Crime and Disorder Act 1998] Act defines acting in an “anti-social manner” as “a manner that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household” as the perpetrator. The definition is intentionally wide-ranging to allow for the orders to be used in a variety of circumstances.

The expression “likely to cause” has the effect that someone other than the victim of the anti-social behaviour can give evidence of its occurrence.

It’s to be wondered if Prescott’s alleged many victims felt alarmed or distressed as he loomed into view (again, if this is all “presumably a report in the paper”, where are the denials and the writs?). And to be (only slightly) flippant, on the basis of the Government’s own guidelines, “someone other than the victim” could have him up before a judge and have him banned from entering Whitehall.

“One rule for them and one rule for us” is the cliche that’s always trotted out and it’s simultaneously galling and yet somehow heartening that the public are judged according to higher standards than a revolting, abject figure such as Prescott. It’s almost as if they’re saying “look, we expect a bit better from you lot, all right?”

But it’s this ambition of “more summary justice, more summary powers, more ability for quick and effective action to be taken”. ASBOs already provide for the curtailment of access to a place, right of assembly and more without a criminal conviction. To break an order can lead to imprisonment – imprisonment, in effect, without having committed a criminal offence. As to the proof of such behaviour, only a fool with contempt for natural justice, fair play and due process would expect Blair to fire Prescott on the strength of allegations made in newspapers (the account of Blair’s refusal to get to the bottom of the allegations should be sent to the Official Receiver overseeing New Labour’s moral bankruptcy) but allegations are enough to saddle a civilian with an ASBO. Again from the “A Guide to Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and Acceptable Behaviour Contracts“:

Lord Steyn went on to explain,

“The inquiry under section 1(1)(b), namely that such an order is necessary to protect persons from further anti-social acts by him, does not involve a standard of proof: it is an exercise of judgement and evaluation.”

It should be noted thst it is the effect or likely effect of the behaviour on other people that determines whether the behaviour is anti-social. The agency applying for the order does not have to prove an intention on the part of the defendant to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

Which means you can face arrest and possible imprisonment on a “balance of probabilities” (the civil standard of proof) rather than “beyond reasonable doubt” (the criminal standard of proof). You prove your innocence not they your guilt. And if you didn’t intend to “cause harassment, alarm or distress”, that is, acted without malice, that’s just your hard luck.

When Blair talks about “more summary justice, more summary powers, more ability for quick and effective action to be taken”, he’s talking about taking things much further. Like taking judges out of the equation and leaving your punishment, justified or not, down to the judgement of individual policemen. I don’t want to sound anti-police here but do the words “miscarriage of justice” mean anything to you? You can be punished without the oversight of a judge but you’ll need a judge yourself to appeal against any injustice.

“The demands of the majority of the law-abiding community have to take precedence,” Blair said back in May. It’s a utilitarian approach where you try and please as many people as possible. If there are those who are punished through no fault of their own, as with the terrorism laws, then it’s all part of the “rebalancing” “even if it will cross the line that most people normally think of as there in terms of civil liberties”. After all “we have always accepted that there will be some very regrettable civilian casualties“. Some of us at least.

Taking the brakes off this particular bandwagon means more people are going to get hurt and they’re not all going to have brown skins like the uncounted Iraqi dead and the easily marginalised and smeared of London’s East End. And as Alan Rickman’s character says in Die Hard, “Sooner or later, I might get to someone you do care about“. There are going to be some white, middle class faces for who the sausage fingers of the Deputy Prime Minister in their pants might be a preferred alternative.