Kelly on Kelly

Two weeks ago I claimed that Dr David Kelly was too well respected a figure for the government's usual tactic of claiming his role was small and uninformed. Events of the last few days have proved me correct - an attempt to do just this has failed, and led to an embarrassing climb down for Number Ten.

Tom Kelly has admitted that he was the source of the outrageous "Walter Mitty" comments. He does claim that "it was meant as one of several questions facing all parties" and that it was something "that the Hutton inquiry would have to address". So was the Prime Minister's official press spokesman quoted out of context? Well, we only have his word for it. His statement also includes the phrase "what I thought was a private conversation with a journalist". Remember, we're not talking here about some naive young civil servant, but a man whose job is to have "private conversations" with journalists that spin the news we see each morning. The idea that Mr Kelly believed his comments would not end up in print is laughable. He simply cannot be that stupid.

So, the scenario we have is of Tom Kelly saying to some reporter "The Hutton inquiry needs to decide whether Dr Kelly was a Walter Mitty character." Even if we believe this version of events, there is still a huge problem. The Hutton inquiry has no need to address this issue at all. Dr Kelly's seniority and expertise is a matter of public record. He has served as a weapons inspector in Iraq before, and was being briefed prior to assignment to the current search for weapons of mass destruction. He was acknowledged as one of the country's leading experts on biological weaponry. His security clearance is known to have given him access to most if not all material on Iraq. He worked directly on the compilation of intelligence material for the government's Iraq dossiers. So much has been admitted by both MOD and Number Ten.

Far from being some fantasist, exaggerating his own importance, it appears Dr Kelly has if anything understated his position. There is no question of anyone concluding that he was some "Walter Mitty character". No one aware of the evidence would even bother asking the question. Yet, Tom Kelly did just that. Why? When the answer is so obvious, why ask the question at all?

There can only be one explanation for Tom Kelly's behaviour. By throwing mud at the memory of Dr Kelly, albeit hypothetical mud, he hoped some would stick. The government hopes that by asking questions, some people will not realise the obvious answer. That the public, that great, amorphous beast, will remember the accusation not its immediate and complete rebuttal. This is one more cynical attempt by the government to use the death of Dr Kelly to distract us from the central question. Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Why haven't they been found? What evidence did the government possess that led it to believe they existed? And given that the evidence is clearly false, why hasn't there been an inquiry into who lied?

Tom Kelly has perhaps one blunder left. He will survive this one, but another incident like this in the near future will lead to his resignation. With Alistair Campbell already set up to take the fall for the suicide, one more blunder will leave Blair short of spinners. If two senior Blair aides are forced to resign over Iraq, the Prime Minister will be exposed in a way he has never been before. Could a third fall guy be found to protect the premier's skin? I have my doubts. We could be just two blunders from a new government, at a time when blunders seem an almost weekly occurrence.

Graham Robinson. 6th August 2003.

Spy in the Sky

Government plans to curb speeding by adding a satellite tracking device to every car have resurfaced. This is one we should be opposing, not just because speeding is not the major problem on British roads, but because this is an unnecessarily intrusive means to enforce the speed limit anyway.

How major a problem speeding is depends on where you are. There is a huge difference between people doing 50 in a residential area and those doing 90 on the motorway. The former are a deadly danger to everyone, the latter almost no danger to anyone. Look at which is more likely to be prosecuted, and you'll see why speeding really has such a high priority in our approach to road safety. It is simply easier to prosecute people for speeding on the motorway. A camera on the M6 will catch hundreds of offenders an hour, one outside my house only one or two. Yet, the likelihood of a serious accident is far higher outside my home.

But, you may argue, speeding motorists are involved in accidents on motorways, often fatal ones. I'd argue this isn't true. Motorway accidents are nearly always attributable to driving too close, failing to allow people the opportunity to change lanes, hogging the middle lane, cutting people out on slip roads, or repeated lane changing. Speed is rarely an issue - a collision at seventy or at ninety makes little difference. It is a lack of respect for the right of others to use the road that kills. Yet prosecution for any of these offences is comparatively extremely rare. Why? Because speeding is easier to prove.

So, we have a problem that already receives a disproportionate amount of police attention, and the government plans to spend billions of our money to "correct" it. Incidentally, creating a network that will be able to track the movement of every car in the country. Yet a solution already exists which does not lend itself to such intrusions. Speed limiters that prevent a vehicle exceeding a certain speed have been available for decades, ones which can adjust themselves to different speeds in different circumstances for years. The only issue is how to let the car know what speed should be the limit. There are two possibilities - signal posts at every change of limit, and onboard data. The first of these would have every thirty limit sign broadcast this fact to each passing car. The second would have a small computer inside each car that tracks its current position, and compares it to a map of the speed limits. Both would be entirely passive - the central controlling system would have no idea where a given car was.

Of these, onboard data would require less maintenance by local authorities, and is therefore more likely to be adopted. Updating the maps for new speed limits would be a difficult job, but requiring an annual update, checked when tax discs are renewed, would be straight forward, and relatively cheap. The overall system would be as effective as milometers, and about as intrusive. It would also be much cheaper than putting satellites in orbit. Unless the government wants to spy on our movements, this is the system it should be legislating for.

Graham Robinson. 6th August 2003.

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