• home • about • twitter • archives • subscribe • email •

So, let’s get this straight. Jack Straw was told last December that Labour MP Sadiq Khan was in a spot of bother (Khan, was bugged by the police during a visit to a prison). But didn’t ask why or what for.

In a statement to Parliament, yesterday, Straw said:

I was aware, in December, of press inquiries from a newspaper concerning visits by my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting to Babar Ahmed, but at no stage before last Saturday was I aware of any information that the press inquiries concerned any covert recording or anything like that.

What an incurious soul he is, the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. At no point did it occur to him to ask just what kind of trouble Mr Khan might or might not have been embroiled in with Ahmed, a man ‘accused of running websites supporting terrorism and urging Muslims to fight a holy war’.

You would have thought that Straw’s sense for trouble might have been a little keener considering the nightmare his government has had in the last few months, but no. To think he studied law at univerity. He must have missed the lectures on the question of motive. He’s clearly unfamiliar with the concept of ‘why’.

Whether this is a quality (or lack of) we should be welcoming in our cabinet ministers is for higher powers than me to decide. It certainly seems odd behaviour in a human being, particularly one at the centre of one the most paranoid and media-manipulative political parties in recent memory. But then if Jack said he didn’t ask, then he didn’t ask.

It must be heaven being him, blithely unaware and unassaulted by the reasons behind the harsh realities of life. ‘One of our MPs is in trouble, Jack.’ ‘Hmmm? Is he really? Oh, well.’ ‘We have to bomb Iraq, Jack’ ‘Hmmm? OK.’ ‘I’m leaving you, Jack.’ ‘Hmmm? Bye then.’