Murnaghan 22.04.12 Paper review with Lord Goldsmith, Margaret Mountford and Clarke Carlisle

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Time to take a look now through the Sunday papers and I’m joined now by former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, the former Apprentice star Margaret Mountford and Clarke Carlisle, Northampton Town star defender who is also chairman of course of the PFA, the Professional Footballer’s Association. A very good morning to you all and Lord Goldsmith diving in straight away, lead us off on this issue of Abu Qatada and an interesting take on the sequence of events last week from the Mail on Sunday.

LORD GOLDSMITH: All the papers are covering the Abu Qatada fiasco, should the appeal have been lodged on Tuesday or Wednesday and just what will Theresa May do but there is an interesting take on this in the Mail on Sunday which alleges that European human rights judges alerted Abu Qatada’s lawyers to the fact that he still had time to lodge a last ditch appeal against deportation, that they didn’t tip off the Home Office but they did tip off Abu Qatada’s lawyers. Now this is an absurd story. Abu Qatada is represented by two of the most experienced human rights lawyers, whatever you think about the issue they know their stuff and it is inconceivable that they were sitting there one day, someone rang them up from the court and said ‘Do you know you have a right of appeal?’ Gosh, we didn’t know that!

DM: And actually you’re right, if you read way down into article, it’s buried there, Gareth Pierce one of the lawyers is saying this isn’t true.

LG: Of course it isn’t true and Ed Fitzgerald QC who is one of the most experienced human rights lawyers, they would have known that. They would have waited until the Home Office first of all said they had got this assurance they wanted from Jordan because that was key to being able to deport and they may also have decided to wait to see if the Home Office was going to lodge and appeal so I’m not surprised they left it until the last moment.

DM: But do you have some sympathy with the Home Office? They must be in contact with the European Court of Human Rights, they must have been told the deadline was when it was.

MARGARET MOUNTFORD: I have no sympathy with them at all. Any lawyer would say if it is unclear, wait. I can’t believe that it wasn’t clear because surely this must arise every time there was a ruling and a potential right to appeal but the time limit must be clearly known, I can’t understand if it isn’t but if it wasn’t clear and you were a lawyer, you’d say something like it’s not clear, wait. Wait until it has definitely expired.

LG: What’s worrying about this story is that this is somebody deciding to turn the European Court into another bogeyman, it’s a way of saying they are on the side of Abu Qatada and I think it’s very bad for the human rights debate which is an important debate but it is not helped by people suggesting something which is manifestly wrong.

DM: Another issue involving who goes where and people allegedly involved in things they shouldn’t be involved in, the Mail on Sunday, Margaret, I’m talking about this issue with Jack Straw and the Libyan dissident and how they ended up in the hands of Gaddafi.

MM: Yes, unlike Abu Qatada, this seems to me a story only in the Mail. MI5 betrayed Libyan dissidents to Gaddafi spies in London sting. Of course when you actually read and try and find out the nitty-gritty of what happened it is perhaps not as clear as it might be except it did happen 700 yards from Harrods which seems to be the most important issue to the Mail. But if there is a real issue here then it does need to be investigated, if actually political refugees were in some ways being coerced to co-operate under threat of something possibly happening to their families back home. But it is not entirely clear, we have a lot of detail like the thing about it being 700 yards from Harrods but not a lot of detail about what actually happened.

DM: Not a lot of detail but it does raise this case, Lord Goldsmith, about Abu Hakkim el-Haj and his case against Jack Straw, that there he was, a bad guy back in the mid-2000s, so called, sent back to Libya and Colonel Gaddafi did what he would with him and his wife and the question for then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, I mean you must have been the lead advisor.

LG: Not on this case, absolutely not. I mean I didn’t know anything about this particular case and I’m very troubled by these allegations. We have obviously got to see what comes out, I’m not sure it’s right frankly to be starting to bring private law actions against former ministers, I think it’s another issue but I think the issue of what was going on with Libya at that time, given what we subsequently know about Gaddafi, that’s a fair thing to be looking into and I think we do need to look further into that.

DM: So it’s a fair cop then is it?

LG: I don’t know about fair cop but …

DM: Tony Blair meeting Colonel Gaddafi in his tent and doing what seems to be all kinds of deals.

LG: No, we’ve talked about this before. The problem was that Gaddafi did do something that was important in this period of actually accepting that he would get rid of his weapons of mass destruction. We thought, I think the world thought he had turned for the good and he hadn’t. That was as it turned out to be a wrong judgement, whether it was the wrong thing to do at the time, that’s another issue but this is a serious allegation and it obviously needs to be looked at.

DM: Clarke, you kick us off with the other burning issue of the day and it is quite literally in some places, the Bahraini Grand Prix, the flags about to go up on it very shortly indeed and lots of debate about whether it should actually be happening or not.

CLARKE CARLISLE: Definitely. This is just a shocking situation I think for professional sportsmen to be placed into this scenario. There is a two-fold argument about it, one is about the human rights issue and if we’re going to protest about a Grand Prix being in Bahrain then why don’t we protest about one being in China?

DM: Or the Olympics?

CC: Exactly because people take umbrage with the human rights affairs there but secondly for me and one that is pertinent to me being an athlete myself is that it is not just the 20 or so drivers, the whole entourages, everything that goes with Formula 1, there are probably around 2000 people who have been placed in clear and present danger so it seems and it is very self-serving for Formula 1 to entertain that.

DM: So what are you saying about sport, that it’s all right to go there, it’s all right to go to China or that really there should be one set of standards for all sports?

CC: Exactly, you can’t be selective about which countries you do go in to and raise a human rights issue here but not there. If you are going to take what is such a gold mine to that country, it is so overtly about financial gain for Bahrain, for F1, that you can’t be selective about taking it there. We can’t take it there but we can take it to China because they’re a superpower or …

DM: Is that the judgement? Is that what you think Margaret, is that the judgement that is actually being made? If you compare as Clarke as done there, Bahrain and China, the fact that Bahrain is economically powerful but nothing like China and in actual fact we can’t lecture them on human rights?

MM: Yes, well there is two issues. There is the safety of the people involved and whether we should be there because of the political regime and the two have got sort of blurred. Sport has been a great force for good hasn’t it, in ending apartheid in South Africa for example but …

DM: If you’d been playing 25 years earlier you wouldn’t have gone, we know that, you wouldn’t have gone to apartheid South Africa so keeping sports away, in particular it was cricket and rugby and other sports.

CC: Yes, definitely, sport can be a fantastic medium for breaking down things like this but I don't think it’s right to put these guys clearly in danger. Their security hasn’t been guaranteed, they said it was and all of a sudden now it’s not. I don't think it’s right to place anyone in that scenario, sportsmen or not.

DM: I suppose it is going to happen but as soon as it’s finished I bet those engines are revving on the planes and they’ll be straight out of there. We need some more papers, Lord Goldsmith, the front of the Observer, Tory revolt over Lords spreads to Cabinet. We were discussing that with Ken Clarke, there are so many issues going on with Lords reform.

LG: There are and there have been for a long time. What’s driving it at the moment is the coalition and Nick Clegg, it’s the only thing that Nick Clegg does, is to do constitutional reform. It’s the one thing he’s got left and I’m afraid he doesn’t get it.

DM: Because no one cares?

LG: Well they may not care that no one cares but what he doesn’t get is that you can’t just talk about composition of the House of Lords without grappling with the powers and I sit on the House of Lords Select Committee on the constitution and we asked him, what about the Parliament Act, that’s the thing which at the moment gives the Commons the power. They hadn’t thought it through. The Act itself says in the preamble that it is going to change when we have an elected House of Lords, he doesn’t see the dynamics at all and he doesn’t see the point that what will happen with an elected House of Lords is conflict with an elected House of Commons. That’s the issue that needs to be grappled with.

DM: Clarke, what would you say if at some time when the career is falling over someone said, hey you’d be good in the House of Lords as it is now. Would you think well democratically I should be elected or do you know what, I’d be pretty good and I’ve a lot to offer?

CC: I’m sure it is a position of privilege and honour, I’m not going to say I’d turn my nose up at it.

DM: But this idea of electing everyone, Margaret, and then really second guessing the House of Commons?

MM: It’s not been thought through but then we haven’t had a government that has actually thought through properly constitutional reform for as long as I can remember, have we? It’s always gone at half cock. All I would say is that there are plenty of other more important issues like the economy that perhaps they could be concentrating on and leave this. I wouldn’t have reformed it at all, I thought it was perfectly all right as it was but we can’t go back to that now.

DM: And your second paper, Margaret, you’re looking at the search for the successor to the next Archbishop of Canterbury and the man named in some places as the front runner.

MM: Yes, John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York. This is in the Telegraph, the Telegraph is very interested, well its readers are interested in who is going to be Archbishop of Canterbury, other newspapers don’t seem to be dealing with it so much but these accusations of racism which are very unpleasant if they are true. What I find rather disturbing is there are two bishops who are commenting in what might be regarded in racist terms who won’t give their names but of course as the Leader later on points out, if there are slurs that being anti-Sentamu is being racist, that might turn more people to vote for him. You never quite know, it’s very political isn’t it?

DM: With things like gay marriage and other things dividing the church but would you like to see a black guy in charge of the Church of England, do you think it would be significant?

CC: Of course it would, it would be unbelievably progressive to see the impact of a black man taking the what is the most powerful position in the world. Every cause needs a champion to lead the way and for a black archbishop, it would definitely have ramifications for other people.

DM: But one of the criticisms of him is that he is actually quite socially conservative.

CC: Can you be critical of a man for his opinions because you feel he should be outlandish because he’s black? You know, he shouldn’t have conformed or defined opinions just because of his race. I think the biggest concern for me here is that there is an element of subversive racism within the church and that’s what should be highlighted. Racism really is a scourge on society and when people still talk of glass ceilings in industries this is what we need to break down so the anonymity of the other two bishops is something I would call to task.

DM: Okay, we’ll try and find out who they are. Clarke Carlisle, bring us your second story there. It has turned into, we never thought it would do but it is such a good news story and we need one of those. The front page of the Sun on Sunday, a guy presumably you know.

CC: It really is, it’s heart-warming literally. This is an incident that has shown everything that’s good about the game that I love and the game that I’m honoured to play. Such a tragic consequence and subsequently there were two people who suffered from this and died and we don’t want to forget those, a lad out in Italy and a non-league player in England but this, the way that the football community came together, it transcended club, it transcended loyalties, everyone came together and it transcended faith because it wasn’t about praying, it was about sending best wishes.

DM: I like the editorial on this, it’s really down to the surgeons, especially that guy who was at the ground.

CC: Definitely, the medical expertise that was on hand instantly, shows the progression that we’ve got within our professional game, the expertise. Fabrice’s heart stopped for 78 minutes, it is almost inconceivable that anyone could survive that but it is testament to, like you said, medical expertise, combined well wishes and obviously his physical prowess as a man that he has come through it and it is really great to see a heart-warming story.

DM: And it’s great to end on an uplifting one. Clarke, thank you very much indeed, Lord Goldsmith and Margaret Mountford, thank you all very much indeed.